Math – Winter Quarter Reflections

As I approach the beginning of my full-time student teaching, I am excited and a bit anxious.  I have taught more whole class math lessons than any other subject, so I should be most comfortable there, right?  In my 5^th grade class, we use the Envision curriculum and it moves quickly with each lesson following the gradual release model (OLM) with demonstration, guided practice and independent practice.  Reflecting back over our intermediate math methods class, I know that I need to start doing more to augment the curriculum.  The frightening truth is the quote from the Lotan article on Group Worthy tasks that "one dimensional tasks require the same skills and the result is uniform success for some students and uniform failure for others."  The curriculum (at least how I have been using it), feels one dimensional and I need to focus attention on how to add to that.

This quarter, we have talked a lot about different ways to be “good at math” and the necessity of having multiple entry points into a math topic for our diverse populations of learners.  We talked about the importance of leveling the playing field so that socioeconomic, language and ability levels are blurred.  I want to be able to randomly group students so that they benefit from working with a variety of different students.  I am constantly trying to remember who I can put together and who I can’t.  Random groupings make a lot of sense and will simplify the process.

Manipulatives, virtual and real played an important role in our readings, class discussions and video reflections.  We have some manipulatives with the Envision curriculum, but they are mostly used for “games” at the end of the units.  I want to start integrating their use throughout the lessons to help get more of our students engaged in the learning.  I also found out that there are virtual manipulatives embedded into the on-line textbook.  We are all so busy getting familiar with the new curriculum and “getting through” the material that we are not using all the different modes we have to connect with our students.

I tend to be a planner, but I need to continue to get comfortable with the reality that sometimes things do not go as planned.  I need to be more flexible in my lessons, more flexible in my approaches and more flexible in my math thinking.  Our cohort has shown me that we all have different ways to approach math problems and now my students are showing me the same thing.  I need to get comfortable in being able to go where they lead and then bring them back as needed.  That journey can be uncomfortable but is how students create their own meaning.

Finding the ZPD for our students is one of the most important challenges that we have as teachers.  That continuum from boredom to anxiety is one that I see in my students faces everyday.  My own experience over the last two quarters tells me that I can be in a different place along the continuum on different days depending on the lesson, my background knowledge and a variety of other factors.  I know that some days, I was in the ZPD and that is what we want for our own students.  It won’t happen for every student everyday, but we need to be close enough to know that if not today, tomorrow.   

The more I know, the more I realize what I don’t know and that can feel frustrating.  I am going to try and relax and enjoy my student teaching experience.  This is what I have been waiting for!

Teacher as Reader and Writer

I have enjoyed and learned from our literacy readings this quarter.  The Routmann book and the Elbow article have given me a lot to think about and they will help me teach writing to my students.  Both emphasize the need for students to write frequently and for sustained periods of time so that our students write fluently and effortlessly.  They also emphasize that writing need not always be graded.  And when it is graded, you need to be careful to look at the whole as well as the parts and focus only on what the writer (or class) is working on to move forward and improve. I love Routman’s continued modeling in class of “this is what good writers do”.

I am thinking that if your teachers do not employ the writing techniques recommended by Routman and Elbow, you will likely need Lamott to help you write when you are an adult.  In my writing group this week, I learned that not everyone loves Lamott as much as I do.  I understand that she can be depressing, irreverent and somewhat repetitive.  I also know that as pre-service teachers we are not exactly her target audience, but despite all of that, for me she has been magical and what I needed to help me write.  I have laughed at her black humor when she described some of her bad days when she sometimes had the urge to “drink gin out of a cat dish” and “grab her infant by the ankles and swing him around her head like a bolo”.  Only on hearing the perspective of others did I realize that this might be viewed as “whackadoo” by those saner than me.

Lamott says that she wants her students to “see the bleak unspeakable stuff” to turn the “unspeakable into words- not just any words but if we can into rhythm and blues”.  The writers who can do this are the writers we want to read and compare notes with.  They take us deeper into ourselves by letting us see deeper into them.  So  perhaps it says a whole lot about me that I find myself “comparing notes” with Lamott and empathizing that we all have bad days, but we pick ourselves up and move on.  The book gave me insight into her struggles with writing and allowed me to look at my own writing in a new light.