I can't believe the school year is almost half over. I feel like just yesterday those 7th graders walked in the door all excited to be back in school.

As far as covering curriculum, I think I am moving too slowly. I am always caught between moving on, and making sure they "get it". How do you balance the two? I constantly struggle to find that balance.

We're just now finishing Chapter 1 in our new math textbooks. Granted, it is a very involved chapter, covering everything from problem solving strategies, to integers, to writing and solving algebraic equations. And we've done some thing not in the book, of course, several tech integration projects, a review of decimals, place value, rounding, etc... that they sorely needed. But at this rate, my students will be in grad school before we finish 7th grade math.

So how so other teachers handle this problem? Do you just MOVE ON.. do you keep reteaching until you are confident that they get it? Are you better at time management than I am? Are you better at differentiating instruction than I am so you can have students working on 14 different lessons in your classroom? What so you use assessments for? Do we really need to give Chapter Tests if we plan on moving on anyway, regardless of the students' performance? How do you produce grades for report cards? Do you consider participation, or only how a student measures up against a pre-set standard?

hmmmm... issues to ponder.. questions for the ages..