Curriculum Teaching and Learning
Introduction
I have a passion for learning. I love to see students beginning to understand concepts that they could not comprehend just moments ago. I am a firm believer that the goal of teachers is not to get children through school, but to educate them with as much knowledge as we can so that they can be well equipped and prepared for their lives outside of school.
I want to show you different ways that I put effort into developing myself to be this kind of teacher. I do this through planning and designing learning, through teaching in new an innovative ways so I can reach all different types of students, and through assessment and evaluation.
Planning and Designing for Learning
While I was teaching I found it very necessary to be as prepared as I could be for every class. I spent a lot of time preparing lessons that I thought the students would understand and that met the students needs. These are some of the lesson plans that I used when I was teaching at River East Collegiate.
This lesson plan was for a day where I felt that the students were understanding the material relatively well, but they were having trouble distinguishing between the three forms of linear equations. Because it was a Friday, I thought it would be fun to play a game on the SMART Board where there were two teams and they had to race to distinguish what form the given equation was in. The students loved the game.
The reason that I included this article is because it shows that I enjoy making learning fun and interactive. It also shows how I set up my lesson plans and my lessons, that I take feedback on how certain things go so that I can continue improving.
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This was a lesson from my time at the SRSS in a grade 11 Pre-Calculus class. It was my very first class with the class and I wanted to try an inquiry with them on white boards about arithmetic sequences. This demonstrates how I organize my lessons and how I reflect on them when they are finished. After each lesson I record notes. This helps me to analyze how I want to improve and will help me when I reteach lessons in the future. This full document can be accessed here.
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This is a unit plan that I created for teaching grade 12 Essentials Mathematics the Vehicle Finance Unit. This is here to show how I organize myself through a unit. The full document can be seen here.
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Approaches to Teaching & Learning (+ICT)
As I prepare for lessons I spend a lot of time looking for and thinking about ways that I could make learning more enjoyable and more interactive for my students. I believe that giving the class multiple ways of learning the material gives more students the chance to succeed. By using activities that involve movement, demonstrations of conceptual ideas using solid objects, creating assignments that involve sound and creativity, and by using technology I have done my best to teach to all of my students. These are some wayst that I have tried adapting my lessons to accommodate for the multiple intelligences in my class.
SMART Board
During my time teaching at River East, I became very comfortable teaching using the SMART Board. I used the smart board for all of my lessons. I used it by having the students copy notes and examples from it, I was able to direct them through solutions using the markers, students enjoyed coming and sharing their solutions because they were able to use the SMART Board, and we were also able to play some fun learning games on the SMART Board as a class (as shown in the Nov. 21 lesson plan above). When I received responses from students about what they thought of my teaching, a lot of them expressed that they enjoyed my use of the SMART Board.
Vehicle Finance Project
I have also run a Vehicle Finance Project with my grade 12 Essentials Math class for the vehicle finance unit. I learned a lot during the duration of the project. I learned that students can have a lot of fun learning during a good project but also that it is important that the project is structured in a simple way so that the students know where things are going otherwise they might get lost and give up. I believe that projects can be very beneficial but have to be done well.
Statistics Notes
When teaching grade 12 Essentials Mathematics at River East Collegiate, I created my own notes for the Statistics unit. I wanted to make it interesting for the students so I spent a lot of time finding real and relevant statistics for us to analyze as our examples. I believe that it is important to get to know the individual interests of the class and do whatever possible to teach to those interests.
Teaching POSN Structures
The concept of POSN's can be very difficult for students to understand. A lot of students in the computer science class had been struggling with the concept of POSN's for quite some time, and my cooperating teacher decided that I should try explaining POSN's to the students in a new way. I decided to build a real life model of the structure that the students could see with their eyes, and touch with their hands, both things that students miss when they only program on the computer. I believe that this demonstration helped a lot of students to understand the POSN structure in a more complete way because they now had a way of visualizing what it was.
This shows that I am able to think outside the box for ways of explaining concepts to the students to help their understanding. I understand that one single teaching style does not work for all students, so for all to have an equal chance of success many different teaching methods need to be used.
Scratch
Also in the computer science class that I taught, I took a break from the text based language Racket, and taught a 3 week lesson in Scratch. This language is a drag and drop language that makes programming easy and fun. There are a lot of visuals and sounds that are available. The assignments that the students made used a lot of computer science basics such as variables, if statements, loops, methods and boolean operations. Along with those they were able to incorporate movement, sounds, text, scores, time, stories, backgrounds, and much more. This gave students the opportunity to be extremely creative in their learning.
I believe that teaching computer science in a way that students can explore and learn through inquiry and cooperation benefits the students in their learning and in their character. Teaching using different methods than the basic Java textbook style gives students a better chance of succeeding. I included this to show that I am excited and ready to use new and innovative methods of teaching.
To see one of my students work in Scratch click here. To see another students work in Scratch click here.
Hexaflexagon
I also spent some time working with the math club at River East. I did an activity with the students where we made hexaflexagons. This activity used pieces of paper that, if folded properly can be flipped to show 6 different faces. The students found this amazing. I show this example to show that I also look for ways to incorporate art with mathematics and that there are fun ways of learning all kinds of mathematical concepts.
Inquiry
During one semester of education I was able to teach a group of 5 grade 8 students through inquiry. The students were able to discover the mathematical concepts of factoring, pattern finding, and problem solving with only simple direction from me. I also had the students write about their learning to me, and I was able to interact with them in mathematics through writing.
I share this because I want to demonstrate that I believe that learning through inquiry is extremely powerful. Through the process I learned that teaching through inquiry is not easy, you need to understand what process the students minds will go through, and you need to be able to anticipate the questions they will have. But I also learned that the learning that the students do is meaningful for the students and the learning lasts because they did it all on their own.
Below are some examples of some of the interactive writing that I did with my students.
Math Lab Activities
In the math class I taught, I also ran learning activities with them, both from the textbook, and ones that I created. From discovering slope using the different heights in the class, to discovering inverse trig functions on their graphing calculators, these activities were useful for learning and they were fun for the students as they learned in ways other than through note taking. I included this to show that I am excited to include new ways of learning for my students, even if it is extra work for me to plan.
The activity shown is helpful for students to see a real life use of the Tan function.
Website
Lastly, I want to show that I am very comfortable with technology and look forward to using it in the classroom. I have done my entire portfolio online to demonstrate the benefits of using technology, and to show that I am comfortable using it myself, and will be comfortable allowing my students to use it for their work.
Awareness of Student Diversity
I understand that every class is made up of a unique group of students, and that no two classes are the same. I understand that it is the responsibility of the teacher to get to know the students, become aware of what the students needs are, and then find ways of filling those needs so that the students can learn. I believe that I understand this very well, and that I do my very best to accommodate for the various types of students that I have in my classes.
I have demonstrated the ways I do this in the examples of my approaches to teaching and learning above. I teach to the visual learners through the use of the SMART Board, I teach to the auditory learners through interesting lectures (which is my strongest aspect), and I teach to the kinesthetic learners through activities and demonstrations. I also understand that there are multiple intelligence, and I try to incorporate opportunities for all types of intelligences to have success in my classes
Students that are from different cultures have had a lot of success in my classes. I make sure to take extra time to connect with them, see how they are finding the class and am in constant communication with them about how I can help them understand the concepts we are learning. I have found that each student is unique, no matter what culture they are from, and all need individual support depending on their unique strengths and weaknesses.
Assessment & Evaluation
I have taught two different types of courses this far in my career, a math course and a computer science course. I assessed the students differently depending on which course they were in.
In the math class, the assessment of the student work came from assignments, quizzes and tests, generally one of each per unit. I wanted there to be opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge with resources available to them, this was done through the assignments, and I also wanted them to demonstrate their understanding without the help of other information sources, which was done through tests and quizzes. I also felt that quizzes were a way of making the tests worth a smaller percentage and helping the students who become stressed out when writing tests to have more opportunities to improve and also to make each quiz/test have less of an impact on their final grade, giving them less to worry about.
I had one instance where a student approached me after I handed the quiz back and said that they felt that they understand the content a lot better than what they expressed on the quiz. I collaborated with my cooperating teacher and I decided that I would create a makeup assignment, and if the student was able to demonstrate that they understood the concepts then I would drop the quiz mark. The student did a great job on the assignment, which ended up being extra practice for them, and they did great on the test. I believe that all assessment should be geared to helping students to learn, not just finding a grade.
I have also used Interactive Writing as an assessment for learning in my classes. With interactive writings students have the opportunity to re-think about the day's lesson and reiterate the things that they have learned in words. I have found that by writing the mathematical concepts in words the students have to think in a new way about the concepts and it builds a deeper understanding of the material in their minds. It also gives me a good perception of how the class is conceptualizing what I have been teaching which helps me to see where they are at as well as what parts of my teaching are resonating well and what is not.
Here are some examples of assignments, quizzes and tests that I used for assessment. Click the picture to see more.
Examples of the tests that I gave and how I assessed them can be found below.
In computer science, the setup was a little bit different. I often started units by teaching a concept and then giving them a simple lab to work on. Most students would finish the lab in the class time. When they would finish I would check their screen and make sure they had done it properly, then they would receive full marks for the day. This would happen 3-5 times throughout the unit. Then there would be a final project that would combine all of the learning they had done in the unit. This would take a couple of classes to complete. This assignment would be handed in and graded. Finally there would be a one period test that would assess their individual knowledge.
Computer science tends to be a topic that students work together to learn. Students are constantly collaborating to develop better programs and to fix bugs, and that is very good. I want to see what students know individually, that is why I give tests, but I also love to see what students can come up with in groups. Because of this I allow students to work together quite a lot during their assignments. Though it means that some of their work is not original, I believe that it increases the learning by a lot.
To see an example of a paper computer science asssignment that I have given using the language Racket, click below.
Reflections
I believe that there are many different types of learners and many different ways of teaching. I am committed to continuing to doing my best to incorporate all learning styles into my lessons. I want to be a teacher who puts the students learning first, and that should be relevant through all of my teaching practices. I try my best to incorporate activities, technology, demonstrations, inquiry and other new ideas into my teaching so that students will have the opportunity to have fun learning and to learn in their best way. Student success is very important and I will do my best to help them achieve that.