Math Rocks!

Candidate implements instructional plans that employ knowledge of subject matter, use research-based educational practices that reflect how students learn, and are sensitive to individual differences.

Lesson planning is a critical step in helping students achieve.  My lessons are either state or national standards based and include a variety of strategies.  I feel that if a teacher teaches the same way every day that the ideas will be lost because students will get bored with it and will not pay full attention to the lesson.  I use a variety of techniques in my instruction.  The first is direct instruction.  This is where I get in the front of the classroom and I give the students notes and have them copy them down and we discuss.  This is not my favorite but as with any subject there needs to be some direct instruction of the content.  I also use‘blooming worksheets’ which are 6 questions about the concepts we are going over and the 6 levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Learning.  Blooming Worksheet example  The Blooming Worksheet allows the teacher to assign all of the assignment to students who have mastered the skills and just portions of the assignment to students who are struggling with the concepts.  This gives the student the ability to review concepts without the bore of the teacher lecturing as well as differentiated instruction form the tracher.  I also use project-based learning.  This year we have done a variety of projects that allow the students to show their abilities including a integer mini book Integers Mini Book directions, a zoo project (measurement) Zoo Directions and an equation flip book.  The students responded well to these projects. 

A teacher has to be flexible in their instruction.  The day to day plan that the teacher creates at the start of the year can only be a suggestion since students learn at different levels and rates and a one size fits all approach does not work.  I look at assessment scores and student responses from classroom discussions to gauge the level of understanding that my students have and change my lessons as needed. 

Students receive feedback on all of their assignments.  Group projects will receive a verbal explanation of their grade in an interview style.  I go through each piece of the project and discuss the groups strengths and weaknesses.  Individual projects are given written explanations of the student’s grade.  Finally, homework is corrected in class and the student has the ability to ask clarifying questions either on their homework or in person.  There are times that I collect the homework and leave feedback for the student.  This gives the student individualized feedback that address the different needs of the student.  I try to do this to at least one of the five assignments the students have each week.

I like to change the way I teach to allow each of the different learning styles a chance to excel.  The above examples show that I hit as many of the multiple intelligences as possible keeping in mind that I have every level of ELD, SPED, TAG, and the regular student in my classroom.  Differentiation happens a lot in my classroom!

Another thing that I do to keep the student interest is that I change the arrangement of the desks every 6 weeks.  The students come in and know to go to the front of the room until the bell rings when I give them the new seating chart.  This is important because the students do not get in the habit of coming in and having the same old boring classroom.  There have been times that I have had to rearrange the classroom about once a week due to the various group activities we were doing at the time.