Re-teach Reflection

     In previous classes we have talked a lot about how it is important to adjust your teaching methods to best fit your students. This assignment was the first time I have actually taken a student work sample and applied this concept. It was difficult, but after we finished it was easy to see how you can use what your students do and do not understand to better your ability to teach them. It is important to look at students individually and as a whole so you can see where certain students may be struggling vs. where there may be holes in your teaching methods. It is just as much of a learning experience for us to teach our students as it is for our students to learn what we are trying to teach them.

Error Reflection

     Throughout this course we have talked a lot about how making math more inquiry based we can learn more about what students know because the responses we expect leave room for more explanation. In fact, explanation is encouraged and essential in most if not all inquiry based assignments. We have talked about how we know what students are grasping by looking at their correct answers and explanations. However, after completing the NAEP assignment and the reteach assignment based on the 14 error problems I think that there is more to be learned about individual student knowledge based on what they are doing wrong. If a student grasps a concept and can maneuver their way through it that is great. When they can't, if we have them explain their reasoning we can better understand exactly where they are going wrong. We can better understand how they are processing what we are telling them. This gives us a starting point as to how we can begin to explain things in a way that each student will better understand. I think that the error analysis is more beneficial and useful to us and in the end to the students as well.

Curriculum Plan Reflection

     This was by far the most stressful and difficult assignment in this course. It was a challenge to consider how each and every content area for a grade band fits into one another and how you might choose to teach each one. When you are trying to write individual lesson plans on a specific topic it can sometimes be difficult to know what to include and what to leave out. However, after completing this assignment it gives me a better idea of how lesson planning will go when I have an actual teaching position. I think that it will be much easier, not only in math but in all content areas, to lesson plan when you have at least a general idea of how the entire year will play out. Not only knowing what students need to cover on a yearly basis, but knowing what they have covered and what you are leading them up to will aid in a better understanding of what you need to cover specifically. This project gave me a glimpse of what it takes to plan for students learning long term and how important it is to communicate with teachers at all grade levels to know what they are covering as well.