(I asked my calculus students for a math pun to title my blog. 🙃)
This week was a little crazy. My
cooperating teacher records his lessons and puts them on YouTube so that
students who miss class can watch the videos and not be too far behind when
they return to school. On Monday night, I got a text from my cooperating teacher
with links to some YouTube videos from previous years and he said we would be
covering those lessons the next day and I could teach the afternoon classes if I
wanted to. So he taught calculus and pre-calculus in the morning, I watched and
took notes of things he said and did during the lesson, and I taught those
classes in the afternoon. The first day of doing this (Tuesday) was pretty
rough. I did not realize how difficult it would be to teach somebody else’s
lesson and try to hit all the important points of the lesson, because since I
did not come up with it I was trying to teach students the content, remember
how to work through the examples, and remember all the guided questions my
co-teacher had asked his morning classes so that the morning and afternoon
classes were getting similar enough instruction. On Wednesday we did the same
thing with him teaching the mornings and me teaching the afternoons, and it
went a little better because I was more prepared (I color coded my notes so
things I needed to remember to write were in one color and things I needed to
remember to say/ask were in another, and that helped), and the students seemed
more comfortable having me as their teacher so they were more willing to ask me
questions. I also went to a math faculty meeting Wednesday morning where all
the math teachers for the school got together to talk about new textbooks,
standardized tests for the district, how to place students in math classes in
the future, and what requirements students should meet in order to be placed in
a pre-AP or AP class.
Thursday was a bit crazier because
my teacher was gone in the morning for a conference so I was in charge of
teaching the morning classes, which I had not taught before, in addition to the
afternoon classes I have been teaching. The students seemed to respond well to
my teaching, and I only had to address a few behavioral issues. I definitely
did not realize how tired I would be after teaching all day, especially since
my planning period is the last hour of the school day, so I did not really get
a break. However, since I taught all day I was able to make a mental note of
what worked in the morning classes and what didn’t, and use that to adjust
instruction and make it more my own for the afternoon classes, even though I was
still teaching my co-teacher’s lessons. I’m glad that I’ve had this easy
transition into teaching the classes so far, and everything was planned out and
easy to follow, but I’m excited to start teaching my own lessons and being more
involved in the learning experience in ways other than lecturing and helping
students with their homework.
I have managed to learn the names
of a majority of the students in my two calculus classes and my one trig class,
but I’m still having a hard time learning the names of the students in my two
pre-calc classes because the classes are larger. It is easy to learn the names
of the students who act out a lot, ask/answer questions, or are talkative in
class, but it is more difficult to learn the names of the students who just quietly
do their work and don’t ask many questions. I’m going to continue with trying
to learn names, but I am glad that I am starting to learn what sports, clubs,
and activities some students are involved in. The students also still ask me a lot of questions about college, and the students who are going to OU in the fall ask me question about OU, so it's been cool to answer their questions that I would have had as a senior in high school but didn't know who to ask.
I guess how I want to improve my
teaching practice moving forward is to be more comfortable in the classroom. I sometimes
feel uncomfortable telling students to quiet down or put their phones away
because even though my co-teacher said I have the same authority as him to
address behavioral issues, it can still be weird to call students out when they
are doing something they know they are not supposed to. I have an easy time
having conversations with students and helping students individually or in
small groups, but when it comes to addressing the class as a whole I need to
get better at my classroom management. Part of it is probably because I have
been teaching lessons I did not come up with, and I’m trying to teach just like
my co-teacher so the students slowly get used to me, but it’s not realistic for
me to teach just like him because we have different teaching styles. I want to
be able to meet my students’ learning needs, and I would love to do super
creative and collaborative group activities with them and follow more of the 5E
style of instruction when I’m not lecturing, but I also know that the students
are not used to that so I want to be able to do this in a way that students
actually stay on task and are not suffering as a result of the eventual change
in teaching.
It sounds like this was a pretty exhausting week with lots of great experiences. I appreciate your reflection and acknowledgment of the challenges in teaching another teacher's lesson, as well as teaching something for the first time. In terms of learning students' names, you might consider doing some "cold calling" on low-impact things to help learn those couple of names that are not sticking. For example if you are unsure who Kristy is when you look at your class list, ask "Kristy will you pass out these papers or turn of the lights." This will help that student stand out a bit.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to read students are comfortable asking you questions about things beyond your classroom/connected to college.
I appreciate what you said about trying to teach off of someone else's notes. That can be really challenging. You mentioned that you were able to make the lessons more your own. I'd like to hear more about that! In what ways did you make it more your own and do you think your cooperating teacher was OK with what you tried?
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to stay away from just lecturing the students, because if I'm talking at them instead of having them guide the discussion then I feel like they're not getting the most that they can out of the lesson. For the most part, I stick with just giving students new terms or definitions and asking students specific guided questions like the ones that my cooperating teacher uses in the morning classes. I also don't write anything on the board unless the students say it, so I feel like this helps them see that they are really using their own knowledge and thinking skills to solve new problems and I'm not just working through the problems for them. My cooperating teacher has been cool with what I've been doing so far, and he hasn't said that there was anything he specifically didn't like about how I was teaching them.
DeleteFirst of all, I love your title! And I appreciate that you asked your students with help coming up with a title. I'm sure they enjoyed it. I'd like to hear more about what differences you see between your cooperating teacher's style and your own and why you prefer your style. You said you recognized you will need to tranition them to your own teaching sytle, have you thought about specific ways to do this?
ReplyDeleteMy students did like helping me come up with a title! It led to a funny exchange of math jokes at the end of class after the students had finished their assignment. For the most part, my cooperating teacher sticks to the predictable schedule of answering student questions, lecturing over new material, and then giving students time to work individually or in groups on the daily assignment. I think it's good that the students have this schedule in place and know what to expect every day, but that's also what makes me nervous about taking over the classes because I'm going to want to try new things that the students aren't used to. I wish the students had more opportunities to do activities that lead to learning through discovery or learning collaboratively with their peers, and I want to be able to move around more in the classroom and see where students are at in their learning during a lesson. I do not currently have a solid plan as to how to transition them into activities like this, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.
DeleteMy advice may seem obvious, but it is to start small. Maybe start with an engage that asks students to observe something, and then have th students share their observation with partner before discussing it as a class. Or end the class with a brief paired activity. And be sure to be clear about your expectations aobut how they will work together before you do any pair/group work!
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