Real Teaching and New Ideas

This week was the first week of my unit and the only word that comes to mind is wow. I will be teaching two classes of sixth grade geometry for four weeks (one down three to go) and seventh grade geometry for six days (two down four to go). Up to this point in the semester, I have only been teaching two or three lessons a week for two classes. The rest of my time had been spent grading, entering grades into the online grade book, taking attendance, making copies, helping students during classwork time, and planning, and I thought that was busy! Now I have three classes and two preps. I know that sounds like a breeze to many teachers out there, but I am sure you can remember when you were going through a teacher certification program and the steep learning curve.

Something I have been implementing in my sixth grade classes are what we call “word notes” or “box notes”. 

Example:	Non-Example:
Connection:	Definition:

                 

I first saw a similar format in an education class and instantly thought of my unit. Geometry is full of new vocabulary and it takes work to keep it all straight no matter who you are. Throughout a lesson I will introduce new words and either give my students an example and non-example and ask them to create a definition, or I provide them with the definition and they come up with an example and non-example. Then as a class we find places where this knowledge can be applied and used. They all have responded surprisingly well to this new system. Many of the comments focus on how easy it is to read and follow, how easy it is to keep track of and find when doing homework, they even like coming up with their own definitions and examples! I think they are beginning to feel a sense of ownership of the material. This was not my original intent but it definitely makes me want to try it again next year with more than just geometry or even math! In my spare time (which isn’t much) I am playing with various layouts of this same system to be able to apply in Earth Science.

An advantage of having this procedure in place is that it makes planning much easier. When we need to cover new material, I already know how I am going to do it and my students expect it. It also naturally creates class discussion about the material. But my favorite part is when the quite, shy, or lower achieving students volunteer to provide a definition or example. I don’t know why but during notes they seem much more comfortable sharing their ideas with the class. I am so glad I found this now. I am sure it will be a strong and lasting stepping-stone helping me become the teacher I want to be.

"even keel"

Late Monday night, I am finishing some homework before getting ready for bed and the phone rings. On the other line, I hear my CT asking her son to go into the other room and I am nervous about what this call could mean. Her daughter was still sick and she was just letting me know that she would not be there the next day, Tuesday. At first, I thought it would be no problem because I taught most of last week and that day. Well, I forgot that my students think it’s a free day whenever my CT isn’t there, and I was left with the task of doing a review for 4 classes (two math and two science).

First hour is always talkative but that day it was worse. The entire class was being disrespectful, speaking out of turn, and over all off task. None of the usual classroom management strategies was working and I was almost at my wits end. Thankfully, classes are only 49 minutes, although, that same group of kids came back in second hour for science. My CT left a DVD movie about water pollution for the students to watch and then a practice test to work on. This was a disaster too. The DVD player was not letting me skip through the scenes so I could get to the right video and I was so afraid I was about to lose all control. Thankfully they held it together long enough for us to get a new DVD player that allowed us to watch the video. After that class, I felt so defeated. I knew that I could not take those feelings into third hour but it was so hard. I feel first and second hour took all the energy I had. I am so thankful that third and fourth hours were less talkative and we already had the DVD problem fixed. However, at lunch I just wanted to cry because I felt like I had failed. When I expressed my feeling of defeat to the sub, he said that he did not notice anything and thought that class had gone well.

Looking back on this experience, I see how important it is to have, as my professor calls it, and “even keel”. Even when everything seems to be falling apart I need to my outward appearance as if I am in control and able to roll with the flow.

My CT has a sub again for tomorrow. It will be my second day teaching my unit so I feel a little more confident with the plan for two hours. However, my CT allowed me to rearrange their desks and place them into groups. I desired to do this so class time would not be lost by having them move into groups for activities but it is harder to keep them from talking. I am going to try to remember the lesson from last week try to maintain that “even keel”.

6th graders + percents = frustration

Friday, I took on the challenge of teaching sixth graders how to solve percent problems (For example, what percent of 60 is 40?) via two methods, proportions and equations. I collaborated with my CT and we came up with a well thought out lesson that we both thought would only take one class period. It so happens that this day I was also being observed from my content seminar professor. For each observation, we fill out an action plan where we ask our professor to focus on one aspect of our lesson. This time I asked him to focus on my time management throughout the lesson. That morning as I arrived at school I was running everything through my mind one more time to make sure I had not forgotten anything. Unfortunately, the one thing that occurred was one of the only things I could not have foreseen with my lack of experience. The students just did not understand the material. I thought I was doing great! I was modeling good notes, color-coding each example, I was thinking aloud like a mathematician for my students, but by about half way through the lesson, they just shut down. Therefore, it is safe to assume that I did not complete my original lesson. I actually only got through a quarter of it. That was first hour.

Third hour I rearranged my entire lesson by first making it into a two-day lesson. I began with the same warm-up, which were a few carefully selected questions from their homework assigned the day before. Then I began in a similar way to first hour but at a much slower pace. Throughout the entire lesson I modeled good notes and thinking like a mathematician. I began with just how to set up a proportion. After a few examples of that, I moved on to how to solve a proportion, and that was the whole lesson. They seemed a little more receptive to the material than first hour was, but they were still frustrated.

After speaking with several people about my disappointment and asking for advice, I was given the suggestion to have them work in groups today. So today I broke them up into groups of four, gave each group a transparency, a marker, and a question. They were then given fifteen minutes to as a group solve the problem using both proportions, and equations. In addition, for the first five minutes they were not allowed to ask myself or my CT for help. I told them that this was to encourage them to use their resources (notes, textbook, and group members). It worked wonderfully for both classes! Each class had enough students to have six groups and out of both classes, only two groups asked for help. Then each group went to the front of the room to share their work with the class. The only mistake that was made (in both classes) was improper division for the question, what percent of 6 is 18? They set the problem up correctly for both methods, however they still switched their division when they solved the problem. That was a great teachable moment for the rest of the class! They did not seem too excited about having over 100% but after some explanation and questioning, they seemed to grasp the concept.

To conclude the lesson today each class received the homework that I originally intended to assign on Friday minus about half of the problems because we did not get to that type of problem. No one seemed terribly excited about homework, even it if was only ten questions. However, after many began working on it and they realized they could use the method they preferred it was not such a bad assignment after all.

Looking back on these two days, I learned one very important thing. I cannot let myself become frustrated when my students become frustrated with the material. After much reflection, I realized that I was more frustrated with the lesson because I knew I could have done a better job at conveying the concept. In addition, something my CT said on Friday just before I left was, “sometimes they learn better from each other than from us.” This really struck me because as I look back on my math education I realize that the material I know the best I learned by working with other students and minimal guidance from teachers/professors. After reflecting on today's’ classes, I see that is what needed to be done. I think refusing to help for the first five minutes pushed them to become resourceful and give the problems some serious thought. I even heard some debates between students about how to set up the problems with some AMAZING reasoning! After seeing these amazing results, this is something that I hope to incorporate into my classroom on a more regular basis.