Blog Entry #2

1. The room I am in for most of the day is a portable. It's kind of...different being pushed off, away from the rest of the school, especially since I never went to a school with portables as a kid. The teachers in the portables have a slightly different culture than those in the main building. They don't usually eat lunch by themselves, they have to lock their rooms up with a key every time they go somewhere, and they have to have a special badge to get into the main building. Even when the kids have to go to the bathroom, the hall pass has to have a tag on it, so that the students can unlock the door to the school. Even though the teachers in portables don't seem to be all special education teacher (I think the subjects taught in the portables are pretty much equal), all of the students going to those classes can't help but feel a little isolated, as I do.

Apart from that, the school is what I would consider a typical middle school. The cute little posters and student artwork that used to line the walls of the elementary schools is replaced with blank walls and the occasional drug-free poster. But that's what the kids are used to--it's what they expect. And since the kids are more mature, I can understand why the halls are a little less fun, and a little more cold. It's just a big difference from elementary school.

The halls are crowed as soon as the bell rings, but that's to be expected. I feel like the kids are no worse behaved during the passing periods than when I was in middle school, so I feel like the students have a pretty good idea of what it expected of them.

2. I haven't been able to observe my teacher during math yet, or the students. But from what she has told me, her resource math students are very talkative during the period I will be teaching them. She told me it was a struggle to get to all of the students because there are so many in her class, to the extent that when I asked if I could help her, she was ecstatic. Many of the teachers in my school are overwhelmed with the increasing class sizes and (in the case of the special ed teachers) increased caseloads. They are learning fractions, decimals and percents in their classes right now, and are working at about a 5th grade level. I will be working with them on their computational and problem solving skills in these areas.

3. I haven't been able to work too closely with my math teacher yet, but I feel like her beliefs regarding mathematics is to help her students succeed in the real world. The class I will be working in uses calculators to help them with their work, with the focus more on how to get the answer than computing the numbers. I do agree that the students should focus on problem solving, but sometimes I feel that computation still has some part in the classroom. Calculators are not always available, and knowing some basic facts are still essential in everyday life, I feel. But the decision to set the class up that way was less my teacher's idea than the districts, so I'm not sure that I agree or disagree with *her* beliefs.

4. In terms of my own teacher identity, I am a little worried about being able to incorporate my own teaching style into such a rigid lesson plan (that we are required to implement in our internship). I am excited, however, to be able to work with a small group of students this semester

Response to Readings- Week 1

1. Taking a problem-solving approach to teaching math allows students to form their own ideas and methods for how to solve a given problem, which might not always be the easiest or the more effective way, but at least gets them thinking about the problem and how they see it in their head.

2. I think my experiences regarding math have made me a little more jaded about the way math is taught in schools (especially high school), but also more driven to change the way I teach it, as well as the way my generation of teachers approach teaching it, especially in the higher grades.

3. I think there is a place for both arguments, because even though I feel that the constructivist-oriented approach is probably the best for getting kids to generalize their math skills, there is often not enough time in public school classrooms, and some students do need to at least supplement their learning with a more rote kind of method.

4. Saying that something is easy would probably be more frustrating to the student, although I've found myself saying it automatically at times. It would be better to relate to the student and say, "I had trouble with this the first time too, let me see if I can explain it better," or something like that.

5. The tasks helped the students become able to generalize their math skills to real life situations and be able to explain them to their peers.