The Sparking Student Engagement Webinar was very beneficial as it gave me plenty of examples to use in my math classroom. This focused on how to take the students' mindset and change from a can't to a can't do it yet. It really emphasized on how to help your students get a growth mindset in your classroom. The Webinar also gives examples and helps you to learn how create engaging math tasks to help your students enjoy doing math. A big thing that stuck out to me was making it so that it connects to a real life example. When the students see not just why the math their learning is important but also how it is used, it allows students to enjoy what they are learning so much more. It is also important to change the pyramid scheme of I, We, You, and allow the students to do some work so that they struggle a bit and are not just doing the work based off of memory or what you did. Instead they should be doing work and trying to figure it out on their own.
Are Calculators Good or Bad for Math?
In this Podcast episode from Make Math Moments, Jon and Kyle, 2 educators, talk about successes and fails within the classroom. This Podcast gives you the opportunity to listen to educators give their take on experiences with calculators within their classroom so that way you can learn from their mistakes. This podcast also helps you to form your own idea on whether you think a calculator is good or bad. One thing is clear from this podcast though. Children need to understand the basics of what they are doing and how to solve problems without the calculator before giving them the calculator because this keeps them from learning how to properly go about solving the problem.
Making the Consolidation Count
In this Podcast episode from Make Math Moments, Jon and Kyle talk to another educator on Consolidation. The teacher they talk to is a high school math teacher at a Vocational school in Boston named Jeremy. In this episode he will talk about different practices he uses in his classroom to find ways to get more engaged, but that the consolidating does not always go as he hopes. Listening to this podcast allows you to get ideas on how to integrate consolidating techniques within your classroom as well as different practices you can try to get your students more engaged.
Summary of Field Experience:
I was given the opportunity to oversee and even help teach within a Kindergarten classroom in Grove City Area School District. I would go into the classroom once a week and would observe their calendar time, as well as help with the stations that they did in the period. I was given the opportunity to teach a 2 part lesson on Coins with a small group of students as well. I even was given the opportunity to lead the calendar time for a day and practice using the math terms that they used in the classroom. This experience grew me personally and professionally because it helped me find myself more as a future teacher and find out more about myself as a professional.
Community Involvement:
Here in the Grove City College community I volunteered to not just help out, but also teach a lesson at a local event called Math Blast. Math Blast is a local event held for kids in elementary/ middle school. This a day full of different sessions where students get to learn different math concepts. In each session there would be different lessons for the students to choose to go to based on their interest as well as based on their age. In my lesson we learned about Rocket Ships and did an experiment with balloons and straws and string. The students would blow up their balloon, attach it to the straw that was on the string and then once the balloon was attached, they would let the balloon go to see how far their balloon would go on the string. Overall, this was a beneficial experience because it gave me an opportunity to practice teaching as well as plug into the community here even more.