Personal Concerns and Next Steps

I really enjoy math but I am becoming really confused on how to teach it. I am placed in an eighth grade math class for internship, but it seems so different from what I am being taught. I read it on someone else’s blogspot, and I agree with there statement that I feel like I am learning math all over again and not how to teach it. Maybe I am not seeing the connection from what we are doing to how to teach math. How should I transfer this information to teaching math? I am kind of scared to teach math, but then I go to my internship and it gives me some confidence again.
I am kind of worried about my test. I think I well but on the other hand I am not so sure. I think I had most concepts down but then applying them to the test makes me wonder if I really understood them. I do appreciate the time that you gave for the test. I finished in class but with the thought of the extra time kind of gave me a little relief. There just to be so much information that I needed to know and understand for the test. I know I had notes but they were only there for a little help. I needed to understand the concepts of the notes, and to a point I did. I do appreciate the use of the notes because they did allow me to go back and re-look and understand some of the material again. I hope I did well on the test.

Personal Concerns & Next Steps

First off...I am terrified of math and then at times I love it, that is if I know how to find the correct answer. I can't make up my mind as to whether I have a firm grasp on this constructivist approach. When I did the worksheet on the polygons I had it all down to the key. Then I took the polygon quiz and got so worried about time and the length that I did not do as well as I should have. I was so happy that we got to re-take it. I did amazing compared to before and I believe the atmosphere and not having a time pressure made all the difference. I also felt this way with the midterm as I know others have as well. I was not sure what to expect. I tried reviewing all the modules and sessional notes that I printed off but it was too much information to look at...so I ended up not making it all the way through the notes. Dr. Reins was right, even though you can use your notes be sure to study ahead of time. While I was taking the midterm in class I began to panic at all the detail, tricky questions, length, and time limit of the test. I began to panic as I looked up at the clock tick and know I would not be able to finish. Then I started to cry right after I handed in my test. Yes, I cried. (I am way too sensitive.) I had this gigantic feeling that I was going to fail this class. It also did not help that I am a slow test taker and get very distracted by pencil tapping, etc. As most of you already know I usually do not take exams in the classroom. However; this is the only class I did not get my accommodation signed for because my friend (in the cohort above us) told us the tests are take-home and I did not think I would need it. So my next step is to get my accommodation signed and have a proctor for the next test. Also, I will be sure to review the notes in more detail before an exam (especially the modules.) Back to the midterm. It was very difficult and I felt like there were many trick and in depth questions. I totally felt the whole constructivist approach being placed in front of me but did not know how to go about to answering the questions. It was a very different form of assessment than I have ever experienced before. I now know what the tests will be like and will be able to better prepare myself next time. 

Questions oh Questions

As we continue to go through our math class and each class we try to understand the new way of teaching math, I have to question whether or not I will be able to do it. I am still feeling very apprehensive about teaching math. I feel like right now I am learning math all over again and feeling like I'm not learning HOW to teach it. What can I do to transfer this information from not just learning this but to HOW to teach it? This is where I am struggling.
I know that this new approach is all about getting students to think for themselves and for them to be able to develop the concepts, but sometimes I just wish for a lesson or two, it could be laid out to us that "this is how you should do it". I don’t mean every lesson but I just do not feel prepared what-so-ever right now to teach math and I would like to be the best teacher I can be, in EVERY subject. I will continue to work hard at trying to learning the best I can, which is the only thing I can do right now!

Personal Concerns and Next Steps

I know for this blog that we are not allowed to vent, but I did want to bring up the difficulty of the midterm. I know I wasn’t the only one who thought it was tricky and walked out after the test thinking, Wow that was really confusing! I did think it was very nice of Dr. Reins to allow us more time to finish the test. He could have just said ok that is all the time you get and now I am going to grade it even if you didn’t finish it. Everyone tests at a different rate. I am one of those people that need an enormous amount of time to take a test, especially one like that. Also, I do think it is very kind of Dr. Reins to let us use are books and binder, but the information we have learned over the past few months and all the print outs that we have been given is a tad much. I just don’t understand why he can’t give us a little bit of a heads up on what to study for. Again, I am one of those people who will want to study everything unless I get some amount of feedback on what to focus on. As for the future, I don’t see why it would hurt if you (Dr. Reins) just gave us some points to focus on.
In addition, about the first quiz that we took. I didn’t do too well, especially when one of my points got taken away after it had been corrected. I do think that it is a great idea when teachers/professors let their students make it up. It gives the student a second chance to improve their score, and allows the teacher some insight on if the student really understands the content being learned. Plus, I liked how the second quiz was similar to the first quiz that helped me out a lot. Actually now that I have taken it a second time I know I did a lot better and feel more confident on my grade. If we have this opportunity every time I won’t be so fearful that I am going to fail the class.

Summary and Synthesis

Over the last month I have discovered a lot of things about math that I had never really thought about before. This class has shown me just how willing I was to learn whatever the teacher told me without really thinking about why this math worked. I always just figured as long as I understood the method that the teacher told me to use and got the correct answer than I didn't really have to think about why this worked.
In the last month we had been learning about areas. We started out with simple areas that we already knew, like the rectangle and triangle. We then branched out into more complicated figures. We found ways that we could use what we already knew from these two figures and combine our knowledge for these figures, some of which we did not even know the names of. We were pushed to find how to use our previous knowledge on these new figures. In the end we were able to generate our own formulas to use on figures to find their areas.
One thing that I thought was important about our using this knowledge was that many of us knew the formula for rectangles and triangles already, some people even remembered the formulas for other shapes. So our knowledge was very different from the students that we are going to have to teach in the future. To me this meant that at some point we are going to have to tell students some formulas.
Pick's theorem was an interesting assignment. I really struggled to find the relationship between the formulas I was able to find, but once I was able to find the correct connections that they each have I was able to really see how I could apply this formula in other cases.
I really liked the assignment for finding the formula of a quadrilateral. I thought this really helped me to see the process that students would have to go through to understand this information. I also thought that, while at the beginning it was difficult for me, once I just concentrated on it I was able to understand the information and would be able to relate the information to students to help them understand.
Overall, I learned a lot this month. I really think that its really imporant for me to understand these concepts in order to make me a better teacher.