Blog #4

To this point, I have felt emotionally confused.  While the small class sizes are excellent, I have felt like I have had no direction on what to do.  Also, hearing about the Teacher Effectiveness Workbook, it makes me even more confused.  Given that I had no direction to begin with, how can I be rated as an effective or an ineffective teacher regarding content?  However, I do the best I can with the tools I have.  Also, I have been enjoying the experience with the small classes.

However, the last two hours of the day are obnoxious.  I have to watch a computer lab of 40-45 or so students (on smaller days maybe 25 students) where all the students are on computers.  At the start of the day, there are 2 paras and two teachers in the lab.  During the last two hours, it is often just me.  Sometimes, there is a paraprofessional until 5pm (which is 20 minutes before the end of the school day).  Keeping the kids quiet (who are not even my students) is rather ridiculous.  Also, to think that I am supposed to be teaching my 3-5 students in those days where I am in the computer lab the whole time is outrageous.  However, they will not move those students (who are scheduled as my students) into other class periods, despite all of the classes being small.  This is because all of the other teachers leave.

Physically, I often feel exhausted by the end of the day.  The day drags on, and I have to figure out what to do each day of the week.  I am supposed to coach seniors, who I do not even have as students.  We were told to coach the students, but also we were given no direction on what to do.  We do not know the requirements, and students come to us with questions which we cannot answer.

I feel like I am getting through to my toughest students.  However, a couple of students I have failed out due to excessive absences.  My toughest students are all at the end of the day on Mondays and Wednesdays, which is ironically in the lab.  They say that I say they work together, but I almost always have to separate them.  Sometimes, they do not want to complete their work, and instead want to socialize.  I felt like I have kept them focused by having all of them sit in different places.  However, my students who are low in other classes are good students, and I have tried to help them by giving them more individualized instruction, since we do have that option (at this point), until they add more students to my classes.  If they add too many students to this class, it will seem to defeat the purpose.  However, we will see what happens.  I like the small class sizes; however, it can be difficult to figure out how to help these students.

The strategies that are working include working individually with students, interacting with students, having them do problems on the board and worksheets to demonstrate that they understand the subject.  Strategies that do not work include lecturing for a long time without interaction.  Also, certain games do not seem to work the best, depending on the game, since some students may not be as engaged.  Working on the board may be good; however, if I make the game a race, then the student who does not solve the problem as quickly seems to stop doing the problem.  Perhaps we could solve it as a class after doing this kind of contest.

I think the next steps in student engagement are going to include doing group activities where students can problem solve.  Perhaps I could create a game similar to something like Clue in which they solve a mystery by doing math problems.  Also, I am going to figure out a way to make my lessons more engaging and fun.

Blog #3

“What are you doing to meet the needs of your special education students?   If you do not have special education students, how are you meeting the needs of your low students?  Have you met with your school’s pre-referral group about these students?”

 I am still learning the needs of my special education students.  For one of my students, my elective class will actually be his content mathematics class.  I really try to encourage all of my students who are special education students.  I try to encourage them, like all of my students, that they can and will do well.

In particular, I am really proud of one of my special education students.  He is 21, and is still working hard to do the best he can at everything.  Ever since he joined the class, he has been consistently putting in all of his effort.

I briefly talked to the resource teacher about some of these students; however, I will need to meet with her about what needs these students have that I may not realize.

What has worked; what has not (Prompt #2)

This year has been an interesting new experience.  As I think about the semester thus far, I find both mistakes and successes in the classroom.  I think that the interactive activities I have done, especially with the Smart Board, has been really good.  Also, I find that presenting mathematical concepts in visual ways or more interesting ways to think about it is important.

However, I realized that something that has not worked was giving the students something too hard to quickly.  I was working on factoring, and I realized that many students are not to that level.  I should have gone over pre-algebra concepts.  However, I thought they were at a much higher level.  I also find that students have struggled with the concept of algebra and figuring out the value of a variable.  I realized that students do not understand that 5x + 2x = 7x.  Instead, students get confused on when and how to add the numbers with variables.

As I continue to move along in the semester, I am planning to do activities with algebra tiles.  I think that students will understand this, and they will be able to better understand with hands-on activities like that.  I think I will continue to do my best to keep the students engaged in what they are learning.  I will also think of ways in which I can allow the students to be more interested in learning mathematics.