3.1+Second+Field+experience+first+reactions

Record your first reactions to this lesson.
Just got back from our classroom experience with Linden Grove students. I switched with Chris and let him work with the 1st hour class so I could work with the 2nd. I was expecting a lack of participation and motivation, what I experienced was pretty different.

The group was relatively cooperative.

Joshalyn, Gena, and Jordan.

Those were their names.

We had some fun with the ranger and calculator.

Right off the bat Jordan told me she did not want to walk at all, and Joshalyn was slouched in her chair not paying attention or giving me any respect.

Why should I demand respect though? Shouldn't I have to prove my authority and worth in my teaching like anyone else?

I didn't freak out but just gave it some time.

Gena was a very interested and willing participant. She loved walking the graphs and her understanding greatly changed over the time period.

Jordan was very quick to understand the CBR and ran the program like a champ, she also had mathematical comprehension of how to improve the graphs with multiple trials.

I finally got Joshalyn to join in the work when we flipped the worksheet, she became confident to speak up and voice her opinion (usually at the cost of one of her peers). What I didn't know was that although she seemed ready to sleep 15 minutes in, she would awake a monster within herself. It was exciting. She at first needed 3 water breaks and 2 pencil finding excursions, but when she came back she got up and started walking graphs. When she did not however get the perfect result and didn't receive enough praise, she began attention demanding mode: crawling on the floor, pounding on the glass, sabotaging the CBR results, and mainly being obnoxious. Her peers found this nothing out of the ordinary, and Jordan was even physically preventing her from jumping and kicking. It was wild.

But the lesson turned into a bunch of laughs and genuine smiles, even though Joshalyn may have distracted us from getting more tasks done and making greater strides in mathematical conversation…

but it was real life.

It wasn't clean or neat or quiet or nice.

It was real and it made things come to life. We got a lot accomplished, we also had time to get more stuff done, but I think we took steps in the right direction, I don't feel it could have gone better than it did, and I am very proud of those girls for putting themselves out there and jumping into this new lesson with new technology.

-kyle d.

When I taught the first time I was with the first hours and things seemed to flow nicely. This time, I was with the second class and, although things worked a little differently, I was able to also make connections with them. Mandi's class go through all of our 8 graphs and was able to talk about the concepts surrounding them. On the other hand, my class only got the third graph but, in my opinion, began to explore the same ideas as first hour. I think I had to do a lot more prompting and funneling in this class than I did before and that bothered me. I think I need to explore how to make this better.

All in all, I think they were able to learn and take from the lesson something important. They seemed to get the idea of playing with their speed and starting position to change the graph but it took a little more time than the first class. I think the class went well but there is room for improvement.

Sadly, we were no able to connect this to real life which was a little disappointing because I think this is a great way to make connections between math and what they do every day. This is something to think about for next class.

Katey Cook

I really enjoyed teaching this morning! Because I was able to work with the first hour students this time, it was great to see how they were making connections. Our lesson plan seemed to go really well with this group - we were able to discuss and walk the majority of the graphs, and the girls (Chloe, Abby, and Maddie) were able to explain how each part of the graph related to their walking strategies. The activity was great because it incorporated both mathematical ideas and physical movement, which I think is very good for students in this age group to experience. And I think the students appreciated how they could modify our approach based on what they thought, not what we thought. One major area in which I could improve is making sure all students are engaged in the conversation - for a while Abby sat in a chair and didn't participate much. I wanted to discuss the vertical line graph in a way that made sense to them, too, but we ran out of time.

Once again, second hour made connections much more slowly than first hour did. Katey did a great job being patient, involving everyone, and encouraging positive language. The students definitely started to think about what made sense and how walking related to the graph on the calculator. However, some of their suggestions (such as walking side-to-side) didn't work out so well. I think if they had more preparation beforehand we would have been able to get a little farther in regards to understanding.

Mandi Mills

This experience was much different than my last. Kyle and I switched so we were both able try out a lesson with different types of students. This time I had the pleasure of working with Austin, Chance, and Anthony. All three young men remembered us from our last visit and greeted us with smiles and what seemed like excited anticipation. The lesson started on a good note with their excitement when I laid out what we would be doing that hour. They all really got into making graphs, talking out how they would produce that graph on the calculator, and debating their justifications.

I really enjoyed presenting them with vertical line challenge. It was amazing to see them try to produce it by running as fast as they could. I even enjoyed pressing them by asking why it wasn’t perfectly straight. Suddenly when I finally asked them if it was possible a light bulb went off in Anthony’s head and he began to explain why it wasn’t possible. Austin quickly agreed and Chance soon followed.

During our wrap up I asked them a few questions to gauge their understanding of the lesson and a few to gauge how well I presented it. I asked them if this helped them with their understanding of graphs and the nomenclature associated with it and Anthony’s response is what I was hoping to hear. In not so many words I understood him to say that he knew how to read and use graphs but wasn’t sure as to why and today at least somewhat helped him understand the why. At any rate I felt that today was a much-needed success for me.

Chris

I taught second hour for today’s lesson, and I know I could have done a better job. In the first field experience, I was very prepared and on top of that, I had students that made excellent observations. I was not as confident working with the CBRs and feel it reflected in my teaching. I was bummed that we did not have the same second hour group as last time. This presented the challenge of learning about my new group of students and trying to figure out their strengths and weaknesses in one lesson.

I feel that my students did pull some valuable information out of this lesson, but I know I passed up many learning opportunities. I had one student, Tatyana, that was very quiet, but could work the ranger program much better than me. My other student, Emily, did most of the talking and was flexible when it came to being walker, calculator holder, and CBR holder. I asked a lot of funneling questions and realize I could have facilitated the learning in a much more effective way.

I’m looking forward to teaching this lesson again and being able to redeem myself. I need to work on responses that won’t result in missed opportunities. Also, I need to work on focusing the students instead of funneling so much. There are going to be good days and bad days in teaching. This was one of my bad days, but now I can use it as a learning experience.

Hailey McDonell

I had a bit of a frantic morning, so I was walking in feeling quite flustered. Thankfully, I was able to put that aside and teach the lesson without letting my initial worry get the better of me. I worked with a group of very bright girls, Saige, Sydney, Kaitlin, and Amirah.

I opened with an example graph and told them that it was a graph of my car driving to school, I wanted to get their initial understandings of rates of change, flat slope, and the y-intercept. With little to no prodding the girls were able to identify that a steeper slope indicated a quicker pace and that flat slope meant a stop. One girl in particular, Sydney, was answering my questions with unmatched ease. I was concerned that she was being a bit of a “turn shark” and not allowing the other girls a chance to speak. I also noticed that Kaitlin was much chattier than she had been the first time that I taught this group. I took that as a good sign, meaning that she felt more comfortable with me.

The group then worked on an example match-me graph with the CBR. I had them first pair up and write out walking strategies before attempting it with the actual equipment. Sydney paired with Saige, and Amirah paired with Kaitlin, which had been their pairings the first time that I had worked with them. In retrospect, I think that I ought to have switched up the pairs in order to put the two chattier girls, Sydney with Kaitlin (that day), and Amirah with Saige. This way, neither of the groups would have had a more obvious “leader.” Though they had some trouble matching the graph exactly, this seemed to be more due to faulty walking performance than misunderstanding, and their strategies were all sound. I was planning on doing another match-me graph on the CBR, but Doug suggested that I challenge them with a parabola. I am really happy that I made the decision to change the lesson in this way, because another match-me graph would have been too easy. Though they were never able to create a perfect parabola, Sydney was able to explain to the other girls a perfect strategy to make one. I really tried to emphasize that as the slope is changing, the speed is changing, slowing down further and further until the vertex.

We finished with a fun activity of making up a story about a distance versus time graph. I thought that overall the lesson went well, though frankly, I felt as though I didn’t have to teach very much. Could I change something, it would be that I made a better effort to converse with my quiet students. I fear that Amirah has a lot of great ideas but never gets to share them due to her soft-spoken nature, at least from what I’ve seen with her. It is possible that she was just not yet comfortable with me as a teacher and given a few more class periods would have been a little more outgoing.

Valerie Gipper

Today I had the opportunity to teach during first hour. My students’ names were Tyrese, Chris and Naomi. I felt pretty good going into today. Having had some prior experience using a CBR in a classroom of students I had a few ideas about how the lesson might go. It also helped knowing a little bit about the students. Having just observed these students the first time we went to Linden Grove it gave me an idea of how they would react to my questions.

Overall I think the lesson went fairly well. We didn’t quite get to calculating slope, but I think they had a pretty good idea from their last math class. The students seemed to like using the CBR, and having the chance to get up and move around. It was encouraging to see them make connections between what was happening on their graphs with the movements they were doing. Even though the lesson seemed to go pretty smoothly there was room for improvement.

I didn’t do a very good job of keeping all of the students engaged. About midway through the hour Tyrese began to pay less and less attention. I was able to get him to answer a few questions, but he also replied with “huh?” after a few of my questions. I interpreted this as a sign of boredom from him. I should have tried to get him more involved with the lesson. He always wanted to use the calculator and refused to walk after he walked two times. Chris and Naomi did a very good job of paying attention and staying on task. They seemed to enhance each others’ understanding when they would struggle with a concept on the graph.

In summary, I think it was a pretty good day. There are always tweaks that can be made to lessons to try to enhance our students’ understanding, and being able to recognize that will be key to our improvement as teachers over the years. I need to work on keeping all of the students engaged. I need to make sure that everyone has a fair shot at getting to talk about their ideas. Maybe I need to encourage students who are disengaged to be more vocal about their opinions to ensure they are still thinking about the problem.

Mike Freeland

Im starting to fulfill my duty as an secondary educator. I expected my students not to grasp everything I was throwing at them first hand. I tackled the fundamental techniques of working with graphs. I had second hour again with only one student I was familiar with. The other 2 students had their minds in other places. I don't know if it was because of the morning time or with them not knowing what was going on but they seemed not too excited about working. I found the overall time being spent with them was beneficial. I felt that I helped review some prior knowledge that they previously knew about graphs and helped them seem how slopes in graphs could be modeled in the real world. So overall I enjoyed my lesson for today. You can't expect them to know everything in shot it takes time. So high patience is needy for these students.

Fredrick Martin

I had 1st hour again and had the same group except that one of my students who was present last time was absent and so I had another young lady join in her place. The two young ladies seem to really enjoy working with the calculator and the CBR, and really grasped the concept, but the young gentleman who had been so willing before seemed a little disengaged and was thinking on something else. I also noticed that they worked very well on trying to match one and really wanted to try and get it completely perfect. In doing so I think they lost the point of the activity and the concept but I brought them back at the end. At the end I asked a few questions about what we had done and why had done it but I also added a few questions that were funneling questions when it became clear that they had lost the concept of why we had experimented with technology. I felt it went much better than the last time because I let them explore the technology on their own more and allowed them to figure the graphs out on their own so that I didn't intervene and get them off task or allowed them to do more of the work. Denise Slate

I was excited to work with the girls I had last time again. I felt that it would be easier for them to communicate with me since we already had some background together. However, we had a change in the lineup, after talking with Kathy during her visit she wanted to make a small change a switched one of my girls Shala with Samantha. It ended up working out just fine. Everyone put in their ideas and I was very happy, however Samantha seemed a bit more reserved and quiet than Amari and Felicity but I made sure she had time to give her input to everyone.

I must admit right off the bat I was discouraged because Felicity said she had no idea what slope was. This meant I had to alter my lesson plan slightly and had to give a little insight into what slope meant. I simply told her that slope tells us how steep a line is. She was still a little confused but I think once we started going over graphs and determining if they had a positive slope or negative slope or no slope she seemed to catch on quickly.

Next I let them jump right in to the calculator and CBR after giving them some quick information about how the system works. I was amazed at how quickly they picked up how to work the program and remember what steps to take to get back to a new screen for the next walker. It seemed that after explaining it once they had it down. I had initially wanted everyone to take turns but it seemed to work for the best that Samantha held on to the calculator for the other girls, although she did try a few times she seemed more comfortable with that so I let her do it. Amari and Felicity seemed to be just fine with it and took turns walking and holding the CBR.

Once interesting thing that happened was I let them pick what graphs they wanted to walk and I was trying to get them to stay away from the parabolas and the graph that was similar to sine or cosine at first however, I instead let them try it. They had some pretty interesting ideas about skipping, weaving, spinning etc. It was fun to watch them think. Finally after a while I decided that we need to maybe give that one a break and try a different one. Later however we came back to that one during my summary and they had figured out how to do it and they explained it to me! I was so impressed! Kaitlin

I worked with second hour again, and I really enjoyed it. Ebony was a lot more open and talkative right away this time since we had an established relationship. Overall though, I don't think I did as well. I was worried going in that this activity would be hard to bring them back from once they started and I think, at least to a point, that happened. After they started playing with the CBR (I did wait a while because of my own worries about letting them loose) it was hard to get them to focus on what was going on again, I think there were some opportunities for me to have done so that I really missed. The first experience was amazing and I really felt like I connected well with them and that they learned a lot, but this time I don't know, I think they got something out of it but I could have done so much better. Hopefully I'll be able to do a better job teaching this same lesson next week, because when I watched Valerie I thought she did such a good job and the lesson itself worked so well and had a lot more merit to it seeing it in action than I thought it was going to. Hopefully upon review later this week I'll feel better about it. I still had a great time working with the kids though.

Doug Wills

I worked with the first hour and the same students that I had last time. They were all really into the lesson and loved making the graphs. I started with having them understand what the what they y-axis and the x-axis, and they worked together to understand pretty quick what they should be. Instead of telling them the distance and the time the CBR detected, I just let them test it out and try to match the first three graphs. They quickly realized that they needed to figure out how far it can detect, but they never did count out the seconds and would just guess with it. After a few attempts they were able to figure out the different graphs and understood the different slopes with them.

Part of the lesson plan was to have the students come up with a story that they could walk and then pass the papers so another student draws the graph. While discussing the graphs they came up with, one of the students was watching other groups and wanted to try what they where doing. So instead of walking the graphs they students just came up with we decided to try other graphs, and the hardest thing that I had with them is to come up with a plan before walking it. They just wanted to walk it and would say, "Just watch," and then the next student would want to try their plan next before discussing what happened. The kids did have a great time with it and at the end of the lesson we did tie it all together and they made mention that in their science class that they have done things with graphs and not so much in math. So it was a nice big circle of how math is used in science, and if I were to have more time or another day it could have great to mention it with more subjects too.

Bret Van Zanten

I was in second period with the same group I had with the division of fractions lesson. I felt this lesson was much easier for my students to grasp as they did not need to work with any formulas or solve any equations. To start, we had them look at a sample graph that had a rate change and a horizontal line. This was difficult for them to completely understand as they thought the graph symbolized more of a map than a graph. They were able to establish that horizontal lines meant that the journey had come to a halt. We then went into a real time practice graph which got them familiar with the equipment.

They had fun with this. An important point I tried to drive home was when they walked horizontally to the CBR that it showed a flat line on a graph. Again, they faced a lot of difficulty reaching this conclusion. I felt that if they could reach this conclusion, they would be able to better identify what was really happening in the graph.

Eventually, we tried to plan out how to match a pre-generated graph. They had a simple graph, one with an upwards constant slope, a stop, and another upwards climb. They were able to understand how to make a graph, but they did not initially try to look at how long they needed to go forward, how long they needed to stop, and wouldn't look at the time until preempted.

In the end, as we were running out of time, I had them talk through how they would create the graphs that were passed out in class last Tuesday. Amos, a child that I had a hard time listening during the lesson, was able to successfully understand the final graph in the packet which I felt was a huge accomplishment.

Overall, I felt all three students in my group took a little bit away from the lesson which was a huge step forward compared to how they did with the fraction division lesson. However, I also felt they needed another day to fully grasp how to read the graphs and the relationships between x and y and also to recognize change in slope a little better. To improve on the lesson next week, I could do a better job tying all of the lesson together as I did not completely bring up everything that this lesson can show the students.

-Marcus Edgette

Upon reflection of the second visit, I felt a lot more confident with my abilities. I know I improved my pacing and clock-watching skills. This time my 3 boys, Ben, Ben, and Jacob, didn't get done with all of my prepared work in under 30 minutes (like last time). I tried to be more conscious of wait time and let the guys struggle with the idea of positive slope vs negative slope. One Ben had a the misconception that only the first quadrant had positive slopes and the second, third, and fourth quadrants had negative slope because some of the points had negative values. The other Ben and Jacob kind of jumped on his bandwagon because they didn't have an answer for themselves when I asked if our graph had positive slope or negative slope. I was happy to uncover this misconception by the end of the hour.

I felt the most encouraged at the very end (just after we hit stop on the recorder). Ben said that he really like what we did that day and had a lot of fun. This is a contrast to what he said the last time we worked together. He didn't like using pattern blocks to show fraction division because he had already learned the algorithm and just wanted to skip right to it.

Tori