Week 3 - Regression

Dreamland Burning questions:

Text-to-self: This book makes me think a lot about the privileges I have, and how I can never really know what some of my students are going through because I have never lived through it. It’s a completely different thing to hear about and help someone through their struggles than it is to actually go through it. Text-to-world: Obviously, one of the most prevalent issues in this book is racism. Although it may look a little different today than it did during the race riots, racism is still very much a part of society. From a teacher’s perspective, this is something we will have to navigate in and out of schools so that our students are protected. Text-to-text: I’m not much of a reader, and I can’t think of any thing to relate this to besides To Kill A Mockingbird (which I haven’t read in about ten years), so I’m going to use this last one to relate to the classroom. In class this week when I was talking to some of the social studies interns I thought a lot about how to have these controversial conversations with students in a math classroom, and I think it is important to model our instruction so that we are not necessarily avoiding issues as they come up, but learning from them. This could take the form of learning what literature or history students are learning in their other classes and creating an integrated lesson based on that so that we could have those discussions.

Math teaching stuff:

I’m alternating between visiting a geometry class and an algebra class, and this week I was in algebra. The algebra class I’m visiting is that teacher’s worst hour, and no matter what discipline techniques she tries the students are still disrespectful, don’t follow directions, and don’t do their work. I’ve tried giving her suggestions based on what I’ve seen other teachers do throughout my internship so far and in my previous field experiences, and she said she’s already tried most of them. It is kind of discouraging to watch her class, because I can tell she is trying so hard but at the same time she is obviously fed up with how the students are acting. The other teachers who have watched that class before have said that if they had to teach that class they would probably quit teaching. Yikes.

On Wednesday I taught a trig lesson over solving triangles using Law of Cosines. When I tried to explain a technical issue in mixing this method with the Law of Sines method they learned last week, I immediately started losing the students. It was kind of a wreck, because no matter how I tried to explain what was going on the students weren’t getting it. Eventually I asked my co-teacher for help explaining it, and he said I had to figure it out. I realize I’m going to have to navigate situations like that when I’m a teacher, and make decisions about how to explain complex topics and when to move on, but I was teaching one of his lessons instead of one of mine so I was already not that confident about how I was teaching the lesson. After a few more minutes he tried explaining it to the students and they still didn’t get it, so we just moved on and told them to stick with one method of solving triangles instead of mixing methods so that they would not run into the technical issue, which is probably what I should’ve done in the first place. After class he told me that whenever he has situations like that he gives himself a set amount of time to explain what the students don’t understand, and if they don’t get it by the end of that time he moves on. I’ve also been having trouble getting the calculus class I teach to be engaged and answer questions while I’m lecturing (again, I’m still teaching my cooperating teacher’s lessons). I work problems through them by asking questions and having them explain how to solve them. The students seem bored and not willing to participate, and they also seem annoyed that I’m asking them how they would solve the problems instead of me solving them for them, but if they don’t ask and answer questions then I won’t know what their level of understanding is.

I would love to say that I've been improving steadily, but that is really not the case, hence my title this week. I think I have gotten much better at my time management, and I’ve also gotten a bit better at being more comfortable in the classroom. The pre-calculus and trig students regularly ask me questions when they are doing their assignments in class, so it has been helpful for me to know that the students are more comfortable with having me help them with their work. However, I still have issues when I am lecturing with being nervous about executing the lesson properly, observing students’ progress and understanding, and actually getting students to participate, but hopefully I can alleviate that when I have more control over what is being taught and how I’m teaching it.

Next week I am going to be teaching my own lessons in the pre-calculus classes, and in two weeks I am going to start teaching my own calculus lessons. The semester plan that I originally worked out with my teacher is about a month off schedule for the calculus classes, so I’ll be teaching my unit and possibly my 2 weeks a lot sooner than I thought I would be. I want to work on Standard 3: Learner Environments and Standard 5: Application of Content because I think focusing on these and working on some new strategies to engage my students will help me overall to be a better teacher.