The Goldilocks Dilemma

This week has been a learning filled week. Starting Monday, I took over all three hours of regular 7th grade math and the whole week I've felt like I was in my own Goldilock's story because I could not figure out the pace of the lesson and each period has its own personality. Before I go into day by day review of what I did here is the class makeup,

1st hour: this is what Miss Mobius and I like to call the 'bobblehead' class because that is about as much energy as you will get out of them. This class is extremely easy on the classroom management side but it is so hard to tell if they understand the material or don't because they give such little feedback. There are some days where it feels like I'm talking to a brick wall while trudging through molasses. I'm working on how to alter a lesson to their needs/capabilities that first morning class.
2nd hour: is probably my favorite hour. The class and I have such a good relationship as a whole and individually because they have a good amount of energy and are respectable to me and each other. I also have found I am able to be myself around this class the easiest because they are easy to joke with and be sarcastic with.
5th hour: is my classroom management test. They come in right after lunch so they're bursting with energy and chatter so its the complete opposite of 1st hour. They are the only class to have really heard my teacher voice and while it is hard to be in discipline mode because I want to teach them, I know I have to instate my authority before I can be more of myself around them. Because I wasn't hesitant to manage them, it made Thursday and especially Friday flow and feel a lot more comfortable.

Monday I felt the lesson went too fast because even though it was creating a review foldable (see below) giving directions and reviewing the material takes a lot of time since they are not used to my language and I'm not use to their 7th grade demeanor. Up until this point I've spent my time observing, planning, and teaching high school math students but high school pace is much quicker than 7th grade pace. Although the speed was a little rough, the students ended up liking the review foldable because there is a 'secret' compartment that they can flip to. The foldable is essentially 8 flashcards in one piece of paper so that they could review properties, evaluating expression, finishing sequences, and using the distributive property.

Tuesday caught be by surprised. They were supposed to take a quiz that day so I had (naively) assumed it would be an easy day. What I had forgot to consider was the quick review I needed to give them and how to state the directions clearly for the quiz. I also forgot about the time between handing out the quizzes and receiving them back how I would be grading them. Lastly, during 5th hour, my classroom management hour, Miss Mobuis went out into the hallway to tutor a student who had been gone and that time the students decided to test me. They are the first class to really hear my teacher voice because it took them quite some time to stop talking for the quiz. There were two students who I had to keep telling to be quiet so afterward I brought each of them aside separately to tell them the reason I had to keep yelling at them was because some students cannot concentrate with noises around and I didn't want to assume they were cheating. Luckily, both of these confrontations went well and calling for authority now helped me later in the week.

Wednesday was my first full teaching day since Monday was mainly review and Tuesday was the quiz. This lesson went too slowly. I'm certain 1st hour took 2 hours. The problem was that I tried to have the students see visually what a word problem was asking for. I had three students come up and play Hugo, Patricia, and Sun (seen right) and then handed them expressions as the story asked for it. This idea did not go over so well 1st hour, 2nd hour really enjoyed it, and it was about 50/50 on 5th hour. At this point I was starting to get nervous about this timing thing because on Thursday my supervisor was coming and I really wanted to nail the timing for him and myself. I made sure then on Wednesday to take care of myself by exercising and getting enough sleep and that surely did wonders on Thursday and Friday (who woulda thunk it....).

Thursday Goldilock's was achieved! I finally got an activity for 1st hour to move around to and get their energy flowing--thank goodness because this was the hour my supervisor came. I handed out an index card to each student with either an expression or a vocab word they learned yesterday. The goal of the activity was to find their partner. This activity worked really well 1st and 2nd hour and it was easy to see if the vocabulary words stuck or not. After this activity, I gave them notes over how to simplify expressions and then I had them trade off with a partner in the steps of simplifying different expressions. The lesson finally timed out really well! 5th hour I learned that having them get up and move right away proved difficult because it was hard to get them to all be quiet enough to give good directions. I'm still learning. Also, my supervisor gave me some really exceptional comments considering it being my first time being watched. I told him about my timing issue and he said that I'm likely to continue struggling with that but when I do get it down, it will make my lessons so much better.


Friday was just wonderful. The lesson for Friday regarded adding linear expressions so I split up the examples I did for them and then they did for me into three 'levels' so that they knew the difficulty of each problem. I really think they liked knowing this and could anticipate each part well. After the lesson, I had 5 index cards numbered 1-5 that they could chose from. Surprisingly they really liked this activity (thanks to Miss Mobius for this idea). 2nd hour I had one boy tell me that he got all 5 problems right! He was so proud of himself and so am I. Those are the moment I live for. 

As you can see, I survived week two even with all of its struggles and strengths. This next week I teach all of Math 7 classes again and in about a week and a half I attempt to add on Pre-Algebra.

Last but not least, I go to show a ViHart video on Tuesday and Friday about Spongebob and Fibonacci as a continuation from Friday's small exerpt about them. Here's that video!