New Insights and Their Implications

I have learned many things over the first couple of weeks of class. I first thing that I learned is that we need to start teaching math to our students in different ways. We cannot just give our students the answers and expect them to memorize everything. We have to allow our students to problem solve and find solutions on their own. By doing this, the students will better be able to retain the information that is being taught to them. It is good to have a student-centered classroom and allow the students to have hands on experience and be part of the discussion in class.
The next thing that I learned from the first couple weeks of class was how to read and interpret the South Dakota Standards. We have to align our lesson plans with the SD standards in every subject. That use to be the part I hated about writing lesson plans. I could never find a SD standard that matched my lesson well enough. It is good to know that there are the NCTM expectations and the focal points that are available to that you are better able to interpret the SD standards for the subject of math.