Learning from our Experiences

As a teacher, it is important to be flexible. On the day of my observation, that was the one piece of advice that I believe helped me the most. Murphy is always laying down his law to remind everyone that things will happen and all we can do is make the most out of our situations. Due to transit delays for many people, our observation began later than we had originally scheduled, we improvised by carrying out our full morning meeting and singing songs such as “Willoughby Wallaby Woo” using all the children’s names and some energizers to keep the children engaged and their minds active while we waited to begin our lessons.

When I did begin my M&Ms graphing lesson, it unfolded as I did plan for the most part. I had planned accordingly and was focused on the objectives of modeling how to sort and transfer information to a graph. I was also more attentive in reiterating key terms that I wanted the children to use and learn from the lesson. I repeatedly used the words: graph, sort, more than, less than, the most, and the least as often as I could while I modeled how to graph. I was extremely satisfied with how engaged the children were and how they volunteered to participate.

As I walked around the classroom, the children stayed on task and sorted independently, begun graphing, and were able to distinguish which color M&Ms they had the most of. I was able to ask almost half of the children which color they had the most and which one they had the least of. A few were even able to tell me additional things they observed such as having none of some colors and an equal number of M&Ms for some of their other colors. We were also able to close the lesson with two children sharing their findings with their peers on the rug. They expressed interest in asking their peers questions about their findings and responsibility in picking who would answer the questions.

I was especially interested in using M&Ms as a tool to teach graphing with the children was to engage the children and keep them excited. The M&Ms proved to be something that the children were indeed excited about. They stood up and began to talk simultaneously. Luckily, I was able to bring them back to task by reminding them that I would pick children that were sitting and raising their hands to help me. They quickly fixed their bodies and remained engaged. They made some great predictions about which colors they thought would have the most and we were able to sort and graph all together.

Although, I was satisfied with their level of engagement, I feel that there is usually room for improvement. In hindsight, I would have only picked one or two volunteers to help me model sorting for each step of the procedure. The children proved to be meticulous when they were picking which color they were to sort and how they colored in their graph.

The reason I felt this lesson went well was that I had actually discussed and gone over the appropriateness of the lesson and how to modify it better for the group of students in KC several times with the teaching team in KC and with my professors. We discussed appropriate segues and ways to connect the topic to prior knowledge and efficient ways to streamline the lesson better. Although the M&Ms math lesson is not my original idea, I did indeed have to vary the lesson to best fit the children I teach. My cooperating teacher and my fellow student teacher discussed talk and turns, or ways to keep the children engaged. We decided that keeping the plan simple and straightforward was our best approach considering many of our children become excitable and distracted with too much stimulation.

I believe that the difference between the first observed lesson and this lesson is that I felt more at ease after meeting my observer and discussing ways to improve my teaching strategies such as being able to walk around and assess, staying focused on my objectives, finding ways to help the whole group stay engaged in the lesson, and having the children repeat main points to ensure they have understanding. Making sure the children have understanding of what was expected of them and staying focused on the objectives was really the key to helping me carry out the lesson. I also had time to discuss with my colleagues ways to improve the execution of the lesson.  Although the children threw me for a loop occasionally like when I asked what the children what they were supposed to do at their desks, a child said, ‘whatever we want to”, I was able to laugh and say “good thing, I checked before you went to go work at your desks.” I then repeated the steps and had them repeat the steps to me.

I was able to learn from the shortcomings of my first lesson. I did not let it wither my confidence, but used it to keep me grounded and focused on the important aspects of the lessons such as making sure I modeled the math vocabulary I wanted them to learn and being focused on their learning objectives. My teaching strength lies in how I relate to the children and how I try to listen to what they have to say. Challenges that I want to overcome would be learning ways to write strong lesson plans in less time than it took me to tailor the M&Ms math lesson for my students. As a full time teacher, I will not have the luxuries afforded to me now such as the low student to teacher ratio and the flexibility to teach one lesson a day. I would like to come to a point where I can streamline writing lesson plans and still make the lessons engaging and specific for my students. I hope with time and experience so much more becomes second nature to me.