Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Big Day...
So I had a chance to try out my new teaching style...and it went very well. I had five students, 3 boys and 2 girls. The students were quiet and did not work together initially. This is the one thing that I really did not anticipate and prepare for. I assumed that the students knew how to work in groups and would just jump right in. I had to continually encourage them to talk to each other and look to each other, not me, for help. My lesson related to finding the cost of a cell phone bill if the company charged by the minute. The students were interested and immediately began working on the problem. It took a little too much time to do all the computations, in hindsight calculators would have been beneficial. This put more of the focus on the computations instead of the concepts. We where able to put the equation in words and then with variables. In addition, I felt rushed in the after stage. I was not able to really probe the students and draw out big ideas. Knowing your students is definitely beneficial. It allows you to make modifications that will help to draw out the big ideas and not cause the task to become blogged down with mole hill issues.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I saw your lesson and I agree with your comments. The time at the end for the post discussion was short but this was just a trail. The minor details will work themselves out once you are in you own classroom. I think you did a fine job. Overall your lesson was cognitively demanding and culturally relevant. The most important thing is the students learned how to relate their phone bill to the minutes used, and recognize a direct relationship.
Post a Comment