Math on the Phone.

There's a bout of pink eye going around the school. One of my students has been out all week, and so he's missed all the lessons on adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators (a really tricky skill). I didn't want him to come in and start from scratch, so I called the house today and gave him the lesson over the phone. He seems to understand what's going on, and tomorrow when he comes in, I'll be able to work with him some more to make sure he gets it.

The whole call, including talking to his dad, took 21 minutes. Seriously. If I could get through a lesson like this in 20 minutes with the whole class, I would be so happy. But hearing him work through the steps and talk me through his work over the phone was really great.