These are my professional reflections after presenting the transformations lesson in class.
In the ‘Lesson Plans I Approve Of’ post you will find my lesson on transformations. This is my reflection of that lesson after I presented a portion of it to my class.
Darcy’s Teaching Video (Produced on November 2nd of 2010)
This video was produced as a tool for self-evaluating my teaching. It includes key portions of the lesson that I presented in Math 337 to a group of my peers. The entire lesson is available in the post named “Lesson plans I Approve Of” and can be viewed at your convenience. It is a teacher-directed approach to the transformations chapter in the Relations and Functions unit of Math 30-1. In summary, the lesson began with an introduction and continued with a lecture, class discussion, coached work, a conclusion, and independent work. The lesson that was presented in class was meant to be a supplement for students who had finished their independent work. Far to often teachers give advanced students more work to complete. This project is designed so that students do not feel as though they are being punished for their efforts in my classroom, rather they are rewarded with a meaningful experience.
Upon viewing the video I quickly noted a desperate need to ditch the white belt. The teaching implications of the video are two-fold.
First, there should be a focus on increasing student participation in my lessons in the future. No one likes getting lectured to, even University students. Definitely not high school students. I feel that this activity is fine for a class that is teacher directed, such as this lesson, but I would like to create classes in which the students discover the material in a more meaningful way. The alternative lesson plan that we created incorporates this concern into the design with a constructivist approach to the chapter. It is available here:
Second, I feel that the time I allow between student responses and my clarifications should be longer. Students may perceive my knee jerk reactions as inconsiderate or rude and may begin to take advantage of it if I begin to give away answers. If I can begin to slow down my responses it will give other students in the classroom a chance to evaluate the answer given before being spoon-fed the logic behind the answer.
My colleagues created a poster to portray the big ideas of Math 20-1:
The most interesting and informative big idea presentation was the Math 20-1 poster by far. The connection between the curriculum and the big ideas presented was very explicit. Your eyes were caught by the 3D-effects and pulled into the center where the main units of the curriculum were located. On the edges of the poster there were small pull-outs so that anyone who was interested could sneak in close and read about the units in more detail.
The poster reflects the values of the Charles article and was very informative. If I were to dissect the more in depth pieces of the poster (ie. the leaves) I would find that I could determine exactly how the course is laid out, what the big ideas of the course are, and the focuses of the course as it applies to the values of mathematics as defined in the program of studies. Students who proactively become involved with this poster would benefit from a greater knowledge of the course and a more holistic view of the teacher’s expectations. Onlookers can get a sense of what is involved in the course even though the Big Idea’s of the course have not been explicitly provided.
From the poster I would determine the Big Ideas of Math 20-1 to be:
1) Students will become familiar with and begin to use different expressions involved in algebra and numbers.
2) Students will develop their understanding of functions and equations as they relate to the cartesian plane.
3) Students will use the basic trigonometric ratios, as well as the sine and cosine laws, to solve problems.
It would have been more useful if the students did not have to determine these ideas for themselves.
