Week 4: Getting Back Into Shape

Being gone for NASA for four days really killed my momentum coming back to work on Monday. Before I left for NASA, I was consistently teaching one period a day sometimes two periods depending on the lesson. On Monday, I had planned with Julie in advance that I would teach 7th hour Math Analysis, but nothing else. That day I felt like a deadweight in the classroom because I didn't exactly know where the other subjects were at except for Math Analysis. The entire day I felt like I was just watching Julie run around the classroom trying to help students while I was seating at my desk frantically trying to wrap my head around what the students were learning. It's hard to help students when you don't know what they are currently working on. Worst of all, Julie asked me to pass back graded work and I realized that I forgot a lot of my students' names! Again, I was super useless...

Once 7th period arrived, things got better (i.e., I was finally useful). I taught my lesson which was over multiplying matrices. It was a very simple and plain lesson, nonetheless, majority of the students were engaged in the discussion and seemed to understand what was going on. Before the day ended, Julie shows me what topics were going to be cover for the next day which I reply that I was okay with teaching any of them, which somehow Julie ends up interpreting that I was okay with teaching all of them. In other words, I accidentally told Julie that I could teach three periods for THREE DIFFERENT LESSONS (2nd-hour "Factoring/Critical Points", 3rd-hour "Geometric Series Test", 5th-hour "Logistic Differential Equations")! I knew if I just told Julie that I didn't want to do that many classes then she would have understood, but a part me wanted to see if I could really handle teaching three different concepts in one day. This was also a good chance to reconnect with my students again. 

I will say prepping for three different lessons was stressful, but it was mainly because I was nervous to teach them all. To my surprise, teaching three lessons in one day wasn't too bad. Overall, the lessons went okay. If I messed up on a problem, the students would quickly catch my mistakes before I went any further which meant they were paying attention! The students will often ask a lot of questions and some of the discussions that are formed give me a chance to explain the mathematics more in-depth. Best of all, Julie got SO MUCH GRADING DONE during the time I was teaching which is not only good for her but also for the students! I am starting to notice my part in the classroom and it's a great feeling to know that I can help out my students and Julie.

For the rest of the week, I decided to teach for 2 to 3 periods a day. I definitely feel a lot more comfortable being in front of a class after teaching these past few days. I know last week I said I would be working the InTasc Standard over "Content Knowledge," but I feel like this week I improved more on my standards for "Learner Differences." Since I have been teaching more classes, I am starting to get to know my students' personality traits. For instance, I notice that Seth (my student) often sits and just stares at his paper. When I walked by and asked him if he needed help he replied no, and so I walked away. Afterwards, Julie walks up to his desk and instead of asking Seth if he needs help, Julie just start helping him with the problem he was staring at. When I tell Julie about this, she explains to me that Seth is on a 504 plan and often times just needs someone to help him refocus or push him in the right direction.  Now that I know this, I am always aware of when Seth starts staring at his paper which is my queue that I need to walk over and see what I can do to help him. 

Next week, I am hoping to work on the standard "Application of Content." I am going to be teaching Geometric/Arthemtic Sequences for my unit, thus, I would like to bring in real life examples that might help students understand the concepts better.