New Teachers Conference

On Thursday and Friday of last week, I attended the STF New Teachers Conference in Regina. And believe it or not, I actually learned a thing or two.

I’ll be honest, I thought this conference would be a good idea to go to. I wasn’t looking for an excuse to get out of my classroom for a couple of days. Although I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t in the back of my mind in my decision to go. I was surprised at how much I actually took away from this conference. I thought it was going to be a little bit preachy, like my old EPS classes. And the classroom management session on Wednesday night kind of fell into that territory.

But over the next two days I enjoyed the conversations we had. A bunch of teachers in the same boat as I’m in, the “I wanna be the best teacher ever, but I’m too tired and stressed and I think I’m coming off as moderate” boat. It was refreshing to hear the presenters being so honest and open with us. Saying things like “I did that wrong for 20 years” was so refreshing, and the understanding that, as first year teachers, we aren’t supposed to be the best teacher teacher in the world. That was a big boost to my morale.

There’s a lot of things I would like to try, and I guess I’m just worried about falling into a rut. I don’t want to be the teacher who just lectures all the time. I want to be the best teacher in the world, I really do.  But that may not happen this year, and after this conference I can accept that.

I guess we’ll have to wait a few years…

Who Knew??

So today in class we were working with some manipulates for math, algebra tiles and fraction blocks to be exact. I can honestly say that throughout the two hours of working with them, I learned something; not only about how to use them, but also about math. For example, using algebra tiles to see if a polynomial is factor-able, and then getting the factors. I had no idea that you could do this with algebra tiles (or alge tiles for short).

The one thing that blew my mind today was working with adding and subtracting integers. Up until now it was just something that we did, no real explanation or justification of answer. But today I seen how adding “zero pairs” to a question introduces much more mathematical content. Because zero is the addition/subtraction identity we can add in as many zero pairs as we want and we won’t be changing the question.

There was a lot of discussion of how this may be confusing for some students, I counter that with what math concept is clearly understood by all students? Sure it was confusing to some people people in the class because they have not seen it done this way before, and they are accustomed to their own way of doing it. I believe that when first teaching addition and subtraction of integers the zero property way is a great idea. Once you get the concept of a zero pair down, they really won’t have to learn that much new. It becomes a simple addition or subtraction question from there on out.

The same thing went for working with the fraction blocks, sure I knew how to multiply fraction, but i never really understood what it went. For example 1/2 x 1/3. simply looking at that I can tell you the answer is 1/6. But if I were to say that this question is the same thing as saying 1/2 of 1/3, that gives a little more meaning to what multiplication of fractions actually means.

Using both manipulatives is a great way to start teaching concepts. The way I see it is that you use the manipulatives to introduce the concept, and then let the students take ownership of their learning and see patterns or relationships. Doing it this way is more of a constructivist approach, something I am a huge fan of.

The coolest part of the lesson was the fact that even though I am in my 4th year of post-secondary education I learned how too add, subtract, and multiply all over again.

Come and Gone

It has finally hit me, tomorrow when I wake up I will be a student once more. I know it’s not the end of the world to be going to classes again, one bonus is that I do get to sleep in. But I will miss going out to the school, I know that for a fact. I don’t even know what to say about the whole three weeks. I feel that I have learned so much from the first time I walked in the doors March 4th up until I left Friday after school. I also can’t believe how much fun I had. Not for one second did my pre-internship feel like work. I just have so many good things to say about my three weeks, the staff was amazing and so helpful, the students were so good, and my co-op was unbelievable. Words cannot describe how helpful he was to my partner and me. I don’t think this one post could even begin to show how thankful I am.

Just one last thing, I still would like to me called Mr. Campbell.

The End is Near

Well the second last day of my pre-internship has come and gone, and I am sad to see it go. I feel like I am just starting to get comfortable in front of the classes I teach, and I feel that the students are starting to be more at ease with someone else teaching them. Which kind of sucks because tomorrow is my last day. But alas I will not dwell on it.

I have a story to share. Today with our Grade 9s we were reviewing polynomials (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of polynomials to be exact). We gave them a problem about two fences, one big rectangular one, and a smaller one within that. We made up a big elaborate story about how we were driving home and we seen these two strange fences off in the distance. So we went to check them out and I happened to have an “x” in my car so we measured each side. Most of the time was spent explaining our story, we kept getting questions like:

“Where did you see this?” “Does it really exist?” “Why didn’t you take a picture?” and so on, and so on.

It was a lot of fun, and it was so awesome to see how engaged the students were about a little polynomial question. And when we told them that tomorrow is our last day we heard a chorus of “Ohhhhh” throughout the class.  I think these Grade 9s are going to miss us, and I can safely say that I’m going to miss them too.

Heritage Fair

I know what you’re probably thinking, what is a Heritage Fair? To make a long story short, it was what the elementary school next door does in place of a science fair. Apparently there are only so many science fair projects that can be done. Bu to go a little deeper, a Heritage Fair is a little presentation done by a student. They can do it on any topic, as long as it relates to Canada.

Sometime last week, my co-op teacher volunteered my partner and I to be judges at the Heritage Fair. We weren’t to sure what to think, but when he mentioned a free lunch we were sold, or at least I was anyways.

So we went across the playground to the elementary school, not having any idea what to expect out of our afternoon as judges. We were placed in a group of teachers that was set to judge the Grade 4 presentations, and I was feeling a bit of stress, afterall we had to pick the top two that would move on to the next round. But when I got to the classroom and I seen how nervous and excited the kids were, I started to relax and have fun.

It was so cool to see how well the presentations were. To see the all the hard work and preparation they put into their displays was awesome. Also their excitement of talking about the topic they have been researching for quite some time now. And also the excitement to see someone new. There wasn’t a moment between the two Grade 4 rooms where I didn’t have a student ask me if I was going to judge their display, or what display I was going to judge next. I had two boys say “I got the two cool judges to look at mine, you and [another teacher who will go unnamed]“. So i guess that means I’m cool in the eyes of a nine year old.

It was a great experience to go and get to witness the Heritage Fair, I have never seen anything like it before. I’m really glad I got “volun-told” to do it.

What A Day

Yesterday was one of the best days I have had during my pre-internship. My partner and I went to the school a little earlier than usual, because our adviser was coming out to watch us teach. I don’t think I need to tell you that we were a little nervous. He was coming out Period 3, which happened to be our Math 9 class. We spent many an hour the night before, trying to get the “perfect lesson”; but we also realized that we had to do what we felt was right for us. We didn’t want to just put on a show for our adviser. I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we totally nailed it! It was the most fun I have had with the grade 9s, I feel that they really understood what we were trying to teach them and as a bonus I got to talk about Optimus Prime.

The feedback we got from our adviser was so good, by the sounds of things he really enjoyed our lesson. But I think the best part of our adviser visit was the chance to show him what we can do in an actual class. Sure we have taught micro lessons, but these are to our peers who know all of the content we present (or at least I hope they do). It was just a good feeling to know that he seen how comfortable my partner and I are in front of an actual class.

One thing he did point out to us, was that he could tell we were having fun. A comment that hit the nail right on the head.

The Final Countdown

Well it appears to me that this will be my last week as a pre-intern. To be honest, I am not really looking forward to it. Not to say that I don’t like the classes I am taking, it’s just that I am having so much fun actually being out in a school. It seems everyday that I am learning something new, a little tip here, a technique there. This has been an absolutely huge learning experience for me.

I also think the students are finally getting comfortable with me teaching their classes. I happen to know all my B30s names, and my Grade 9s are, well, they are acting like Grade 9s. And I love it. I’m the type of guy who likes to joke around, and I also happen to like math; so when I get to joke around about math, and have a back and forth with my students, it is just awesome.

For instance, some Grade 9s were pointing out my not so stellar board writing skills, and that what we were doing was “sinchy” (a word used by one of the students). So I called him up to the board, and apparently writing on the board isn’t so easy. but it was all in good fun.

All in all it was a good day, and I am looking forward to a fantastic last week.

Case of the Fridays

Today was totally “one of those Fridays” and there was nothing I could do about. Yesterday my B30s had a test, and today our co-op was gone for basketball. On top of this it was a kind of review day to get ready for the next chapter. And one more thing, I was missing nine of twenty three students due to basketball or band. But this was not just my class, every class I was in today had a definite case of the Fridays. The students really weren’t in the mood to learn, not to say that they were being bad or disruptive. They just were not in the mood for math. And today I was cool with that. Being I only had half of my B30s actually in the class, and we were reviewing factoring from Math 20 (which there were little to no questions asked about how to do it, the students that were there today had no major problems with it).

To sum up how the day was, I will share a little story of what happened today. While my partner was teaching her B30 class in the morning, for some reason unknown to me, I laughed at a question she asked. I don’t know if it was the way she asked it or the question itself. But I laughed. That’s just how the day went for us. But is having fun really such a bad thing?

The Perils of Marking

So my B30s had a test yesterday, and seeing that I taught them most of the chapter I decided to mark the test. Everything was going great, a check mark here, a half mark lost there. It wasn’t that bad at all. Then it happened. The answers that were totally off, caused by a little mistake earlier in the question. This is where I found it hard to decide how many part marks to give a student. My partner was having the same problem, we stayed after school and dug deep to find the best way to go about it. Neither of us had marked anything like this before; and i was worried about being too generous or being too stingy with my marks. I guess this is something that I will learn over time. But for a while last night, my brain was fried.

It Was a Quiet Day Today

It was literally a quiet day today.

The B30 class I am teaching, which can usually be quite chatty, was surprisingly quiet. Especially since today was a work period; the class was given a review to work on because they have a test tomorrow. Usually when this particular class is given time to work on something, I spend my time walking around trying to get the students back on task (some more than others), and at times it can get quite loud. But today was different, as soon as I handed out the review and told them to get to work, there was silence. It was so noticeable that about five or ten minutes into things my co-op handed me a note which said, “They’re quieter… AND WORKING! Did you slip something in their drinks?” That’s just the kind of class it was. And I must say, It was really nice.