Mid-Year Reflection

A rather selfish blog of my teaching goals for the new year

With the new year quickly approaching, I took advantage of this snowy Saturday afternoon to reflect on the first half of the school year. With 8 inches of snow (and counting) outside my front door, I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I sat down to write a new blog post about an activity I had done recently, but instead found myself reading through the multi-genre piece I wrote for the GMWP on my first year of teaching. I read about my troublesome student teaching experience and how I vowed to be a more personable teacher. I read about my goals to teach problem solving and emphasize the importance of critical thinking and justification skills. I read my reflection of my first full year teaching where I hoped to make daily lessons more relatable and hands on. Reading through the multi-genre pieces, I was reminded of the fire I had over the summer to improve upon my teaching and grow my passion for math education. During this time of year, I (and most likely all teachers) need a reminder of this fire to help us keep warm and push through the tough winter months.

My initial reaction to my multi-genre piece was a fear that I hadn’t done the things I hoped to this year. I was afraid I had gone back to a rigid personality through my frustration with students’ performance. I was worried that I hadn’t kept a journal and hadn’t taken much time to reflect. After thinking a bit longer, I realized things weren’t quite as bad as I imagined. I have reflected regularly through writing this blog and talking with other teachers about my classes. I could work on writing more in between blogs, but this is a big improvement from last year. I also remembered how well some of last week’s lessons went. My most challenging Algebra 2 classes did a great job persevering through some difficult problems, and I was able to keep them motivated throughout the hour. I know I could still use some work staying positive and having more realistic expectations for students, but this could easily be improved by taking a few seconds to just breathe and assess where students are at each hour. The holiday break might help a bit with my positivity too.

While reflecting, I was reminded of the blog post I was going to write. It was about an activity in which students wrote a paragraph explaining how they solved an applied trigonometry problem and then responded to each other’s explanations. Not the most exciting blog idea, but one that led to these bigger questions I am once again reminded of in my multi-genre piece.

• What do students think is most important in math class? Right answers? Algebraic steps?
• What do they think a thorough justification sounds like? What makes it convincing?
• Do they understand the importance of knowing why we do things? Do they care why?

My goal this year was to make problem solving, critical thinking, and justifying the cornerstone of math class. Based on how students did with the activity, I don’t think they are understanding these focuses, which means I need to do a better job modeling them. I tell students that the concept or the process is more important than the answer, but maybe what I’m saying isn’t matching what I’m doing.

This begs the question, “What should I do differently?” We are less than half way through the year, so there is still time to make changes. My initial thought (that ties into keeping a positive vibe) is to praise the process. In addition to asking students about their process or having them write about it, I should also be rewarding their progress. Students appreciate when I acknowledge their correct efforts and overlook their minor mistakes. I should be verbally rewarding them for their accomplishments. My praise has been lacking lately. Another thought was that students may be struggling to see why the process and justifications are so important because they have not experienced what it is like to problem solve without them. I am planning on trying the activity described above again, but this time students will be asked to read and reflect on an explanation for a problem they have not seen before. They must fully rely on the explanation given by another group to understand the problem. Afterward they can give feedback to the group on the strengths and weaknesses of the explanation. My hope is that students will have a greater appreciation for justifications that explain “why” after experiencing the struggle to comprehend first hand.

To end on a positive note, I read in my multi-genre piece that I wanted to personalize and feel more connected to our curriculum this year. During my second round with the Geometry curriculum, I feel I have made some major strides in tweaking the lessons to suit my teaching style. I have added many justification elements above and beyond what is given in the curriculum. I have also adapted lessons to include more technology and hands on projects. Most recently I had success adapting a probability lesson I referenced in my multi-genre piece to center around Finger Twister (like the mat and spinner Twister game but with just your fingers). The lesson was a hit! Students were engaged and learned more about unions and intersections than they had last year. I also got very positive feedback from the other teachers trying the lesson.

Although I am still basking in the laziness that comes with snowed in afternoons, my focus for the remainder of the year has been renewed. Throwing out my “how to” blog and opting for some reflection time was exactly what I needed.