Pesonal Reflection On The Interview

Through the interview with teachers and students, I found the results to be very helpful and inspirational. It helps me know more thoroughly how a teacher really is. The knowledge, other than what is being prepared right now, such as being confident, the ability to demand respect, and holding onto the principles and being flexible towards adjustment takes years of experience, with maybe some blunt mistakes, to come. Also, it was an excellent experience to obtain the understanding of a more professional perspective. There were so many brilliant ideas that young teachers can adopt to make their classes more fun and interesting. I also like Mr. Ahn and Dr. Yamamoto's comments on the challenges young teachers usually confront and how teachers can overcome the challenges to become better teachers. It cleared up several doubts and confusions I had. The answers from the students also rose up many interesting issues that not only young teacher, but I think, all teachers should participate to deliberate. As a math teacher, being able to understand what students think and help them with their difficulties is what makes student feel that their teachers care, and such feeling encourages and motivates students to participate more in the subject matter. One of my instructors once told me that the best method to understand students is to ask them directly. They can feel that they are also important. A successful communication between students and teachers makes a more successful teaching career.

Summary Of Teachers & Students Interviews

We interviewed two teachers, and ten students. one was Dr. Lucus and the other was done via email with Mr. Ahn, a math teacher from Fraser Heights Secondary. Most of the students interviewed were my tutoring students from Riverside Secondary and Centennial Secondary.

To start the interview, the greatest challenges, for new teachers, are usually classroom management and politics. Their lack of confidence to demand respect, fear of being disliked, and thus the attempt to be friends with the students often rise problems in classroom management. "As a teacher you have to believe that ultimately children want to learn," and "if the students respect you, they will eventually like you." An example regarding politics would be the constant argument among teacher, children, and parents about the score students want as they do not deserve it. A student would go home to his parents and say that he deserved 95% on a test but got only 93%, and the parents then would go to school, tell the principal, and have the principal to "discuss" with the teacher about the score. In teaching math or any subjects, a teacher needs to be well prepared not only in mastery of curriculum and background concept of the subject, but also some inquiries irrelevant to the subject, personal inquiry for example. As we went on and asked of the use of lesson plans, Dr. Lucus especially stated that a well scheduled and detailed lesson plan is not necessary. A check list containing a list of what is to be covered during a class is sufficient. He also uses assignment and quiz to evaluate the students' level and change the pace of his teaching. While evaluating students, both teachers agreed that students should work to meet a certain standard. Such standard is set in order for them to continue and advance studying. It does not have to be the common standard set by school. Sometimes, setting the bar lower can help encourage students to study better. However, once the bar is set, all students are required to pass it to go on. Interestingly but not surprisingly, most teachers prefer teaching senior students to junior ones. As weaker students drop out over years, teachers know that students are more willing to learn and that they can focus more on the subject matter. Teachers can also concentrate more on passing their knowledge rather than having to deal with behavior issues, which usually occur in junior students.

From the result of the interview, most students think that math is "something they need to get over with". They take math because it is required to graduate, and so they can apply for post-secondary school, whether they actually like math. On top of trying to understand the concept, most students have difficulty trying to understand the language of math problems. A student had " to read a problem at least five times to get" what the problem really means. In regardless, most students agree that math is important as it applies to daily lie experience and it helps develop logical thinking and problem solving skills. They also think that, with one exception, everyone can do math. Surprisingly, even though they think math teachers can affect their grades as "they can either make you or break you", most of them find their teachers do not care about them at all. Of course, there are still teachers who care. "My math teacher does care about my grades and of everyone else in class. He tries different methods to help everyone with different learning paces to understand the material."

Reflection On Assigned Reading

To start, the idea of Heather J. Robinson and my goal to mathematical teaching actually coincide. How knowledge comes about is by induction rather than by injection. The author provided her idea and posted the problems that could arise during the lecture. In fact, I have thought about these problems before and wondered how I could manage to solve these problems. The only difference was that I did not make an effort to search for a solution. Nevertheless, her solution to make students successfully acquire knowledge on their own were profound and inspirational. However, the graphical representation could be somewhat misleading. This representation alone could be interpreted quite differently. Taking away the perspectives, most of the representations of the scores would appear so much better as in there would be more students with mostly A's and some F's. The variation between the course average and the final exam would not differentiate much either. These representations, however, could not prove that the teaching mehod was better. Nevertheless, with her research taken into account, the result was actually remarkable and quite impressive. She is making some progress indeed. The only problem letf to be further discussed would be the adaptablity of the students. Not all teachers could do as well as Heather did. It is then important to know whether students can maintain their performance as they can proceedingly have different teachers over years.

ROAR!!

Timed Writing & Reflection

Two of My Most Memorable Math Teachers

1. Mr. Chen

He was the most strict math teacher ever. He was extremely enthusiastic in teaching math. He knew his stuff very well that he never failed to asnwer any math problems. He had a set of rules, during his lecture, to prevent any interruption of his lectures. He made sure that we learn our math by going through numerous exercises and problems. He looked mean and fierce, but he also cared for the health of students. Most surprisingly, he was excellent in chinese literature. He used and wrote my Chinese name into two meaningful phrases, and that was what made him the most memorable math teacher I ever had.

2. Mr. Cheng

Unlike Mr. Chen, He did everything quite the opposite way. He is not strict at all. In fact, he almost appeared as if he did not care whether we intended to learn. He allowed students to develop on their own. He had his unique way of helping students to further develop their mathematics, which was later referred as Chengnism. He also encouraged mathematical activities for the students who are truly interested in math.

Reflection:

Both teachers, with different perspectives, were able to pass on knowledge sucessfully. They actually imposed different means of teaching and understanding, although one may not be as discrete as the other one. However, I would not use their teaching as my referrence, but rather, as the how-not-to guidance. Forcing down knowledge on students was outdated, and giving too much free space for development was only able to target certain amount of students. However, their intentions were great. Definitely, I would learn from Chen's enthusiasm and Cheng's indiscreteness along with my idea of teaching, which would be to make students feel as if they were not taking math courses at all and at the same time, to learn all there is needed in class and in their daily life.

Reflection on 1st Microteaching Lesson

Peer Evaluation

According to the feedback, most agree that basic knowledge of the chosen topic was introduced, and everyone was able to participated in the activity. Pretest of prior knowledge was acknowledged (as a part of introduction) and post-test on learning was achieved through practice. The conclusion was a little blurry to some peers. Over all, this lesson was interesting and demonstrations with required equipment,music, and examples were well accepted by the peers. However, many suggested that a louder speech, and variation and combination of knowledge are the areas that need further improvement. Also, "it would be nice to have the lesson more organized."

Self-evaluation

I thought there were some things went well in my lesson. Making use of analogous examples was one of the them. it helps relate daily life experience that students can easily conceptualize and further improve the strength of the lesson. otherwise, everything else was adequate. However, if I were to teach this lesson again, I would definitely, first of all, improve the volume of my speech, which could help my peers better understand my lesson plan, and have several rehearsals before I would proceed the lesson. Also, it would be wise, depending on students' knowledge or level towards the topic, to choose learning material(the beat of music in this case) accordingly. Based on my peers' feedback, I noticed that the flexibility such that an instructor can alter his lesson as he proceeds could be a merit in lesson teaching. Also, taking students' input, often it is to their interest, and adopt it appropriately into the lesson without swerving too far away from the main topic is what makes a good lesson and a great instructor. One of the problems that could arise in this lesson was that not all students would be interested in the chosen topic, no matter how well prepared the lesson was. Therefore, some students may not even understand what they were doing, why they were doing it, or simply forget about what has just been taught ten minutes ago.

Micro-Teaching Lesson Plan

Date: Sept. 18th, 2009
Duration: 10 minutes
Location: outdoors/studio
Subject: Hip-hop Dancing
Number of students: 6
Topic: Introduction of Hip-Hop dancing lesson I

Purpose:
Students will learn the basic movements of hiphop, different categories of hiphop dancing, and the differences of hiphop dancing from other dances.

Previous knowledge assumed:

None.

Material&equipment required:

1. hiphop music
2. boombox
3. mirrors(if accessible)

Teacher activities:

1. introduction
2. warm-ups
3. explaination
4. demonstration
5. guidance or tips for students to get the hang of it.
   

Students activities:

1. imitation along the demonstration
   
2. practice after the demonstration

Timeline

Introduciton
(1minute)
simple categories of hiphop dancing

Warm-ups
(2minutes)
basic warmups

Instruction of basic movements
(3minutes)
hiphop steps
clapping, nodding,&grooving

Practice
(2-3minutes)
guidance and tips during practice

Reflections On Skemp's Article

Based on Skemp's article, differences between two understanding approaches were made clear by means of excellent analogies. Distinctions of two approaches were defined to separate one from the other to be adopted due to the preference of different teachers. However, the relationship inbetween should be of a continuum, a balance where both approaches were adopted, which depends on the students' levels of understanding. At the intuitive level in Mathematics, implement instrumental teaching to help develop adequate calculation skills throughout high school, while relational teaching is utilized at its minimal to provide the knowledge in necessity or to fill up the gaps, and gradually switch grounds. Appropriately used, both approaches could benefit each other, and the argument between them would not have been as distinctive. Instrumental understanding provides an aid and appeals students into learning or getting to know Mathematics, while relational understanding provides the logic or the "truth" behind Mathematics, as instrumental approach can jump in anytime to reinforce the knowledge and keep students interested and engaged in Mathematics. Nevertheless, the analogies provided in the article were profound. They provide a more comprehensive view of understanding towards the argument between instrumental and relational understanding. Relational teaching with analogies could at times embrace students closer in Mathematic studies.

ROSA!!