12/22/06

This year, my team has an intern named Kim. Kim has been with us for about eight weeks now, and her time with us is ending next week. I know this doesn't sound particularly math-related, but I have learned so much over the weeks I've worked with her. As a second-year teacher, I wasn't sure how much I would really be able to help Kim. I am still trying to figure out the best way to present new information, manage my classroom, and efficiently get through lessons. Working with Kim really helped me to think about these things and reflect on my own teaching.

Earlier this week, Kim was teaching lesson 4.1 in Stretching and Shrinking. We had already sat down together and discussed the most important parts of the lesson, as well as the best way to present the information. In this lesson there is a picture of a girl holding a cardboard fish, and examples of the fish being resized. Students use ratios within the figure (height/width) to decide which figures are similar. I was observing Kim and the class as she was teaching the lesson. There were a lot of things that I thought I would do differently, or that I noticed were not a necessary part of the lesson. I am not writing this as an evaluation of my student teacher, but it was kind of an "aha!" moment for me. I realized that I have a better understanding of the material than I sometimes give myself credit for. I have been struggling to make sure that I hit the important information and don't spend too much time on unnecessary information.

I am trying to figure out how to take this information and apply it effectively. I think that I'll try going through each problem within an investigation, and review what is absolutely necessary to cover and what is extra or extended information. If I go through each problem and eliminate the information that I might spend too much time on, I will also check my pacing. This is a new direction for me and I'm sure I will write about it again - who knows where this will take me!