Great Teachers

Yesterday was a half day and pretty uneventful. Amy's class was reviewing for a quiz on Friday and the 8th graders were working on their projects for exhibition. It is fun watching and helping them with their projects because they are building inventions and testing ideas. Their project must include a motor, a battery, and a switch. I am learning right along side of them and I love it.Today was a wonderful day full of professional discovery. It began as usual in Amy's class as the students reviewed for their quiz tomorrow. Instead of observing Dan's class today I worked on Study Island with some 8th graders in the tutoring room. Study Island is an online website full of multiple choice math questions aimed to prepare them for the STAR test in two weeks. The students are really eager to simply guess instead of taking their time to solve the problems. Becky, another tutor, was in the room helping as well and I learned a couple of valuable things from her about how to explain certain math rules. I was a student, unfortunately, who didn't care why it worked and so as a teacher I really need to work on discovering the why to better help my students. One of the most important things I've learned over this semester has been that if students understand the why, they don't have to memorize the information because it simply makes sense to them. Genius! Why didn't I think of that before? It was wonderful to tutor students one-on-one. Once every couple of weeks, the whole school meets for a community meeting and today a bunch of after school programs came to advertise their activities. Demonstrations for fencing, karate, self-defense, speed training, and film making were given and the students were able to ask further questions at lunch. After lunch I helped Dan's science class work on their projects. I'm learning it is difficult for me to tell students to "just try it out and see what works." I am inclined to give any help or knowledge that I can which I am coming to realize, really doesn't help them in the long run. It is harder to be the better teacher by guiding their learning and not simply shoving your knowledge into their heads. It’s best for them to explore their own ideas and use their failure to learn and formulate new methods. It gives them a sense of accomplishment and allows them to learn the material in a way that makes sense to them. I am in the process of strengthening this ability in myself. Going back to myself as a student, I really hated when teachers told me to "just figure it out, see what works," but now I see that those comments were in my best interest and had I accepted them I would be an even better thinker. After playing with the 8th graders, I went to Ms. K's peaceful 7th grade class where my lesson of guiding students continued. The students completed their opening problem which included an inequality equation. The students used their reasoning to answer the problem. The whole time, I'm thinking of the rules that go along with this problem:
-3x +2 < 6
a. x<3
b. x>-2
c. x<-2
d. x<-3
The students reason that it must be a negative number and then that it can't be less than -3 because that answer does not make the statement true. They narrower it down to b or c and decide that c is basically the same as d, so the answer must be b. For me, I subtracted the 2 and divided by -3, switching the sign because I divided by the negative. Ms. K provided little help and patiently listened to the students talk it out. I doubt the students even know the rules I used to solve the problem. For the remainder of the class, they worked on another online program to review solving equations. After class, I had a chance to talk to Ms. K about her style of teaching. She explained that unlike most students, her students can work and understand word and real life problems wonderfully, but when given the basic equation with no connection, they struggle. Ms. K did not teach solving equations like one would think. She introduced them to story problems to think through the method of solving the problem based on the information. She is doing her masters on whether an adult mentor helping students on their homework will improve the quality and completion of the homework. So those homework packets I was explaining earlier in the week, are expected to be done with an adult. Ms. K said she has met some resistance from parents who are not strong in math or who have little free time, but she keeps the problems doable and allows the students to work with any available adult or older sibling. After talking to Ms. K, I sat in Ms. DeAnna's 7th grade drama class and followed along as they read The Crucible. Today was wonderful and I am grateful to have this opportunity to observe and grow as student and teacher.