So, week 8 contained the conclusion of MEAP testing (huzzahs all around!) and a few lessons from 7th grade. I finally got to see how my cooperating teacher uses the Connected Math workbooks in the classroom, so I at least have a basis for my own planning. And, speaking of planning...
I finally planned out my first week, which is really only three days (Wed - Fri), and I think it went mostly well. It took a while to get myself focused enough to actually sit down and plan, but once I got going, it wasn't so bad. I essentially planned all three days in one sitting (with a few internet breaks here and there...ha!). I have found the Teacher's Guide quite helpful in identifying objectives and suggested homework, but I find myself consistently diverging from their suggesting approach to accommodate the needs of my own students. This has been a tough balance thus far, as I am trying to differentiate to my students without selling short their abilities. There were a few problems that I nixed from the suggested plan because I thought they would be too intensive for my students.
In a perfect world, I'd have assigned them anyways, in hopes of the students struggling with them and actually getting something out of it. Thinking about my students' past actions, however, I decided that too many of them would give in at the first sign of a struggle - especially considering they were homework problems, and my students have a poor history of homework completion. I am consciously thinking about how I could differentiate to students within the same class, given their level of 'readiness,' but I'm not yet comfortable enough with exactly how to do that without singling out students (as in my case, it would be singling out the under-performers). That, and I don't want to kill myself over this as I'm just getting started.
Now, the biggest issue I have with starting this week is also the source of the first major disagreement with my cooperating teacher. He wants to take 10-15 (and sometimes 20!) minutes at the start of each day going over CPS remote questions which are ultimately unrelated to the lesson at hand. This means that I have less time for lessons, planning for warm-up activities is now complicated, and students are experiencing disjointed "lessons," which will only serve to dilute potential learning. It's downright frustrating, but it's his class, so it's what I am going to do.
So, yeah... I take over in three days, and I'm being observed in four days. I'm a bit nervous, but am confident that even if it goes poorly, I can learn something from it all.
:)
2 comments:
Adjusting for your students is quite wise. And I'm sorry for you about the disjointed lessons. Maybe it will make opportunities to make process connections, or big picture (about mathematics) connections between the warmups and what you're talking about.
The struggle stuff is interesting. It's what we want for them, to be able to struggle, but there's no initial capacity for it. How are you going to let them know that struggle is valuable and they can do it?
On the first day, I have an activity that is specifically designed for them to struggle. Sadly, I couldn't set up an observation for that day.
I will be explicit when I introduce the activity, and will describe why it's important that they struggle with the material.
Post a Comment