Blog Post

Since I only go to my placement on Friday I was unable to obtain a sample of student work for this week. Another downfall of attending my placement on Friday, in my classroom in particular, I typically only see the students work in their math journals. They have their morning math assignment and then they work on math once more later in the day. So one of the things that I would like to ask my teacher is how she goes about starting a math unit. I have seen some of her lesson plans very briefly but it only lists the pages in the books. I am curious to see how she goes about planning a lesson. Does she have time to consider all of her students needs? Does she create her own worksheets to introduce a topic or does she use the ones that are given to her? It is very difficult because my class has so many different levels of academic achievement and I know she does not have time for all of this. However, I would really like to see how she introduces a math unit to the class. At the end of the week the worksheets I see are sometimes are wrap up of everything they have already learned to see if they remember it, and sometimes it is new things that they have just been introduced. Sometimes when students ask me questions, I have to ask them or my mentor teacher how she introduced the topic to them, or if she even has. Many times the students forget what they learned and can't even think of how to approach solving some problems. It doesn't seem to be a problem with every student in my class, but since I do not see her teach math in the classroom I wonder if she is drilling this information into their heads. Because the ones that don't seem to get it, don't really seem to remember it. This could also be a problem the student has, they may not be paying attention in class and not trying. But I wish I had a chance to sit in on a unit of instruction.