Reflection on Math Class

When I started this class in January I was excited to learn and really enjoyed the classroom instruction. I particularly enjoyed the activities. I learned a lot about teaching, and was excited to try out some of my new ideas in the classroom. Once we started with the iTouch assignments, however, I started getting frustrated. I spent a lot of time finding out how to use the virtual manipulatives and thought I would not be able to keep up and get the most out this class. The technology part of this mathematics class was by far the most challenging. I definitely experienced learning tension. 

Now I am much more comfortable using the iTouch and virtual manipulatives and technology in general. It was a great learning experience that I had to go through to get to where I am today.  With the help of a technology tutor, I am learning how to help myself with my own technology questions and problems. I saw how much students in my classroom loved playing math games on the Envision website. I could not believe how excited they were.  This happened about the time I was getting more comfortable with the technology part of teaching, so my sense of enthusiasm for technology picked up again. I want to engage students in math and now I have a set of tools for that. 

Lesson plans are concepts not checklists. This stood out to me this quarter and has helped my teaching and learning.  We had been using checklists and complicated formats for lesson planning in this program up until this class and I do see their advantages. However, I found that when I was in front of students trying to teach my carefully planned lessons, they seemed to lack excitement and true meaning.  I think I was too worried about how to remember everything I had planned for and I got sidetracked from the goals of the lessons.

Lately I have kept my math lessons simple and it is working much better.  When I heard teachers have been known to make lesson plans on sticky notes, I finally got it. I am not there yet, but that concept turns out to be exactly what I need to improve my teaching.  I always keep in mind four simple steps: What students know, what do I want them to know, how will we get there and how will I know they have learned.  As long as I know my content, these four steps have really helped me focus on the right elements of lessons.

iPod Touches in the Classroom

Now that I have been able to experiment with the iPod Touch more, I am much more comfortable using it. It has been a challenging quarter in technology but I am excited about how much I have learned and how much I am starting to enjoy technology. I was always so far behind in the instruction that the learning took forever. With the ideas and assignments and help in tech class I feel like I have a good base of knowledge that will help move me forward in a manner that is reasonable for me and I will be able apply this to my classrooms.
Now when I am talking with other teachers at school or in other places, I am comfortable discussing technology and if it is something I have not heard of (which is still often) I can follow along in the conversation and ask questions that help me understand what is going on. Then I can look it up at home and find out more about it. I have learned enough of the language of tech, that I do not feel like an outsider when the subject of technology comes up.
With the help of a tutor (I should have done this last year) and many hours of trial and error, I am much better equipped to find solutions to my own question and know where to look to find new ideas. I feel that this iTouch project helped bring me into the current decade and now it is my job to stay here and move forward to the next one. 

iPod Touches in the Classroom

After using the iPod Touch in the classroom a little bit, I am more comfortable with it, but still have lots of room for growth.  The 1001 uses for the iPod Touch assignment helped me gain a better understanding of what is out there available for use in and out of the classroom. I still wanted to try using the adding and subtracting fractions applet that I reviewed, but was not really comfortable enough yet to teach it to a student. An even bigger reason was that I think it would cause problems if only one or some of the students got to use it when others did not. It is a large math class with 31 students and I have still been trying to figure out how I can incorporate it in with my teaching without causing problems for those who do not get to use it right away. However, that is a good problem to have, really. It could be used as a motivator for students to stay on task and when they are finished with their work and it is done correctly, they could have the privilege of using the iTouch to use math manipulatives for awhile.
I have been thinking about and wondering if I/our school could get a set of iTouhes for cheap or free somehow. We have discussed in class how just getting the word out that we have a goal of teaching young students to use technology (iTouches for example) that some might come our way. My elementary school is in Kirkland in the middle of technology land, so I think we have a good chance. I will keep thinking about this and see what I can come up with.

iPod Touches in the Classroom

When we got the iPod Touches for tech class, I was a little nervous because I had never used one. It was difficult to figure out how I would use it in the classroom before finding out how to use it myself. I was glad to have the opportunity to learn about it, but I It turned out I needed way more instruction than we had time for in technology class.
One way I was able to use the iPod Touch was it for a science project that involved interviewing students about their thoughts about science. I asked them about what they liked about science in general, in class and in their everyday lives. The iPod Touch was a great tool for that because I was able to really talk to the students without having to write everything down, which would have changed the flow of the interview. This benefited the students by allowing them to share their thoughts about learning science and what they like and dislike about it. I used this information to reflect on, discuss, write about and incorporate it into my future science lessons. It is so small and discreet, the students didn't even pay attention to it except to say that it was cool that I had one and one of them helped me get the recording started. 
Another way this could be used in the classroom is for higher level students in math classes. I am student teaching in a gifted 4th grade class and we teach them fifth grade math. They are all at different levels of abilities and finish their work at different times. A big challenge is to keep the higher level students learning after they are done with their work and the others are still learning in groups. They love playing virtual games and the iPod Touch would be a great thing for them to use to keep learning after finishing their regular work. Tangrams would be excellent for this.
The third use for the iPod Touch in the classroom is in math again. It would come in handy for students who are not getting it and get frustrated with the same instruction that is not working for them. The adding fractions manipulative would have been perfect for this group of students in our last unit because that is what we studied ,but I did not know how to use it well enough to share it with them.

Self-identies, encouragement and failure

I learned that students' opinions of their own math abilities differed from others' opinions of their math abilities. I found this so interesting and helpful to know because it reminds me that students need constant encouragement in the classroom to develop and grow in learning mathematics. 
I was also reminded that students have the right to fail. Teachers deprive them of valuable learning opportunities by not allowing them to fail.
I still wonder how to strike the right balance between letting students fail enough to learn, but not so much that they become discouraged.

Virtual Manipulatives

I really enjoyed using virtual manipulatives at school and it was a great way to reinforce rules of geometry. Once I got the hang of the game, it was fun and  I wanted to keep playing, even when class ended. I realized how educational this could be in my placement where we teach fifth grade math and we just finished a unit on geometric shapes and rules.
We use "Envision" math curriculum and it has many similar games for students to play to learn and reinforce math concepts. We have not played them in class before until yesterday and I have never seen so many hands raised at once for students to come up to the board and show what they know!  It was unbelievable! They could not contain themselves and were out of their seats hoping to be the next one called on, they were talking over each other, etc. They loved it and it was obvious that many of the students play these games at home and I'll bet the rest will be from now on. They were even fighting over who got to go up to the board and show each other how to log on to the website!
Applications for virtual manipulatives in the classroom are endless. When I saw how excited students were to use them, I immediatly thought about how they could help with classroom management. They provide a great incentive for getting students to stay on task and do their work during class time. Teachers could give students a chance to use the computer at the end of class or the end of the week or something like that when they finish their work.
I wonder how, logistically, using math games as incentives for desired behavior could be managed well. I will ponder this and try it out next quarter. I see problems if  only some students (e.g. who were done with their work) got to play the games while others still had to finish work, particularly with the noise level and the distractions created by the players.

Lessons are about concepts, not checklists.

Lesson planning is one of the most challenging and important part of teaching. This week I learned that thinking of a lesson plan as s concept rather than a checklist is a great, simple idea that helps me keep the objective in mind while planning and teaching.

We have spent a great deal of time in school learning how to create lesson plans using specific templates and formats. I think this is helpful to make sure nothing is left out and has given me the tools to think and work through the process of planning lessons. However, upon reflection, I have been presenting lessons as if they were checklists and they lacked excitement and engagement and probably learning. I was so concerned about checking off everything on my lesson plan, that my students' quality learning took a back seat.

Using unit tests to plan lessons from is great for keeping the end in mind and developing a concept. It is helping me simplify planning and I feel this will bring more life into future lessons. I do still wonder though, how to figure out what it is that students of various ages will relate to. One way of figure this out is by watching movies that my students watch and reading their books.