Student Teaching Final Reflection

STUDENT TEACHING FINAL REFLECTION - SPRING 2020

1. BEGINNING OF THE SEMESTER

Describe your perceptions of teaching mathematics at the beginning of this student-teaching semester. As you discuss your thoughts at this time, evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a mathematics teacher. Discuss at least 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses.

My perception of teaching mathematics is that a teacher's mathematical knowledge and instructional strategies are critical. Teacher must be proficient in his or her mathematics area and have broad and deep mathematical knowledge in order to earn students’ trust and respect. As a student teacher at the beginning of this semester, I should be familiar with related math content in order to earn my students’ as well as my cooperating teacher’s trust. In terms of instruction, I believe my instructional skills can be improved through daily self-reflection. I have a short debrief with my cooperating teacher after each lesson. I reflect on what aspects of my teaching that need more attention and what aspects I did well.

Based on the first two weeks of my student teaching experience, I have come to the conclusion that my three strengths are: teacher voice, flexibility, and willingness to learn. My cooperating teacher has a loud and clear teacher voice and the students are used to it. Although I normally speak softly, I keep in mind that I need to speak as loud as she is and articulate more clearly when I am teaching. My second strength is flexibility. I would not rush to finish my lesson plan if the students are struggling with the concepts. Last week, I was teaching students how to solve systems of linear equations using a substitution method and I noticed that some of the students were confused with the procedures. Therefore, I slowed down my pace and asked them if they had any questions on their mind and helped them overcome the misconceptions. My third strength is that I am willing to learn everything that can make me become a better teacher. I have learned a lot of theoretical knowledge at Queens College during the past two years, and now I have the chance to put it into practice and gain experience while teaching the students. I have also learned multiple representations that are really helpful for different types of learners, for example, using color-code notes can help visual learners in conceptual understanding and CUBES (e.g., circle, underline, boxed core information) strategy can support students to solve word problems.

From the last two weeks of student teaching, I think my weaknesses are: lack confidence when teaching in front of the classroom, unfamiliarity with my students, and poor classroom management. First of all, I don’t feel confident enough when standing in front of the classroom and that I will get a little tense when students ask questions because I don’t know if I am able to answer their questions. Moreover, I have to constantly look at my hand-written notes when teaching the class, otherwise I would forget to mention some important notes or concepts. Secondly, I don’t know my students that well, particularly because I don’t know their prior mathematical knowledge. For example, one day I went over a spiraling homework question that was solving an absolute value equation “|f - 5| = 13,” I told them that we could break the equation down into two separate equations like “f - 5 = 13” and “-( f - 5) = 13.” They were confused with why the second equation equals positive 13. After the class, my cooperating teacher said she taught them in another way by breaking the equation into f - 5 = 13 and f - 5 = -13 as not all of the students have procedural fluency in using distributive property. Since I don't know their prior knowledge and how they approach such math problems, I feel that there is a gap to connect their prior knowledge. Lastly, I think I have a poor classroom management skill because I don’t have effective strategies to get their attention. In my class, I have two talkative boys who sit next to each other. The boys always talk off-task while the class is working on tasks. I tried to keep them busy and stood next to them to monitor their work, but this strategy did not work well.

2. FIRST SIX WEEKS

a. List two elements of instruction that you were working on during the six weeks of in-person student teaching, and why/how you were working on these particular elements (e.g., questioning, tasks, management, motivation, summarizing the lesson).

I was working on questioning during the six weeks of in-person student teaching. Prior to each lesson, I constructed important questions in order to provoke discourse, deepen understanding, and overcome potential misconceptions. My planning questions were based on standards, learning objectives, task materials, and students' common misconceptions/errors that I had noticed from previous formal and informal assessments. I planned both open and closed questions to target students' procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, and problem-solving/mathematical reasoning skills. During the class, I asked many “what”, “how”, and “why” questions to probe for their understanding. For example, when the students were learning how to solve systems of linear equations algebraically, I asked them questions like “What are the differences between substitution method and elimination method?”, “Why do we use this method?” “How do we use substitution/elimination in this problem?” etc. Based on my questioning and students’ responses, I assessed how well students were doing along with the mathematical concepts and I adjusted my pace of teaching accordingly. Since students were still struggling with the elimination method, I slowed down and showed them another example so that desired learning objectives were accomplished.

Summarizing was another element of instruction that I was working on during the first six weeks. Summarizing would ensure students recap critical components in procedural and conceptual in their own words and understand the materials on a deeper level. Students were benefited from summarizing as it was a great opportunity for them to self-check what concepts they had mastered and what concepts they would still need to improve on. In addition, summarizing supported students' understanding and learning by listening to other students’ summarization. We typically had two types of summary, the written summary and oral summary. Sometimes we had an exit ticket as a formal assessment to summarize what we had learned in the classroom. Students were asked to write what concepts they grasped and what concepts they still had trouble with. Alternatively, they were asked to answer questions that were related to procedural, conceptual, and mathematical reasoning/problem-solving skills. I also introduced the Frayer Model to students and they used the Frayer Model to summarize unfamiliar vocabulary and concepts on their own. Sometimes we would have an oral summary in the middle or at the end of the class, students would be asked to summarize materials with their shoulder partners before we moved on to the next part. Moreover, students would also be asked to answer questions orally as a class at the end of class.

b. Discuss any critical moments you had when student teaching at the school, and how the moment impacted your views on teaching or learning mathematics.

Sometimes students were having difficulties to focus on tasks, especially the students who did not perceive mathematics as sensible, useful, and worthwhile. Students lost motivation very easily if they could not apply math content to real-life applications or they were not interested in the topics or tasks. One of the lesson’s topics was graph and interpret functions. The purpose of this lesson was to identify the domain, range, and intervals in which the graph was decreasing or increasing. Since the topic was a little bit challenging for them and the worksheet only contained graphs with all different types of functions, about one-third of students lost their interests and got bored during individual practice time. This was the moment that impacted my views on teaching because I should have included motivational questions/tasks in each lesson in order to keep students engaged, curious, and interested. I should have designed the tasks that were at a more appropriate difficulty level so that they could connect the new contents with their prior knowledge. I could have connected students’ interest to the lesson by telling a pertinent story or fact before starting the lesson. In addition, I should have included cooperative learning so that students can get motivation from their peers by asking and answering questions, building concepts and ideas, finding errors in the worksheet and so on.

3. MOVING TO REMOTE LEARNING

a. Describe how you felt when hearing about the move to remote learning.

I had so many questions in my mind when I heard about the move to remote learning. I wondered what platform or application we will be using to conduct remote learning, how students can participate and what about the students who don’t have access to internet at home, how can we assess students’ learning, how do students take Regents test, what class schedules would be, will current grading policy still applies and so on. When I heard that schools would stay closed and no one knew when schools would reopen this academic year, I started missing my 34 students.

b. Explain your level of involvement with your cooperating teacher and classes. How are you staying involved with your students? What are you learning about teaching mathematics?

Although I was not allowed to teach, I was welcome to offer support in any way. Thanks to the assistant principal of the mathematics department and cooperating teacher, I was a co-teacher in Google Classroom and Zoom. I helped my teacher post worksheets and comments in Google Classroom. Besides helping my cooperating teacher take attendance, I also offered additional support by answering students’ questions and concerns in the Zoom chat during the class. Moreover, I had a 1 hour tutoring session on Wednesdays and I guided students to solve worksheet problems.

There are so many applications for math teaching that I did not know before. For example, Kami is a good annotation application for PDF and document which allows me to show work and draw graphs on it. I have also learned how to share my screen for students through Zoom so that they can see my work. Although I cannot teach mathematics in-person at the school, there are numerous applications and resources that I can use to support my teaching; such as my students are doing homework on Castle Learning online platform.

c. What were some issues that you, your students, or your cooperating teacher had to overcome in moving to remote learning? Were there any unexpected advantages to remote teaching and learning?

Student participation was the first issue that my cooperating teacher and I had to overcome in moving to remote learning. Since students may experience difficulties during the unprecedented time and the participation was not mandatory, we could not force students to attend the Zoom meeting. The only things we could do so far was to encourage students to try to join every lesson. We posted in-class worksheets and answer keys on Google Classroom so students were able to practice on their own. We also encouraged students to attend Wednesday’s tutoring sessions if they need help with any problems. Students' attention was the second issue that my cooperating teacher and I had to overcome. I found out some of the students were off-task while the cooperating teacher was teaching in the Zoom. I understood that it was hard to stay focused on learning at home since they were easily disrupted by other things. Therefore, my cooperating teacher and I frequently asked students if they had any questions during the lesson. We would also ask students to answer questions orally or in the chat to promote teacher-student interactions and keep them in task. Assessment was the third issue that we needed to overcome in moving to remote learning. Since my cooperating teacher and I could not see students’ work so we could not notice their misconceptions if they did not ask. According to the school policy (the school does not want to give students too much pressure), the only feedback/assessment we had was their homework performance/grade on the Castle Learning.

An unexpected advantage happened to my students who did not normally speak in the class and students who were shy or did not want the rest of peers to know what they did not understand. These students were able to ask questions privately through Zoom chat to me or the cooperative teacher so that they would not be put on-the-spot.

4. END OF THE SEMESTER

Evaluate your ability to teach mathematics at the present time. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Were you able to address any of the weaknesses and build on the strengths you identified in question 1, in either the first six weeks of in-person teaching or in the remote classes?

At present, my first strength is my presence in front of the classroom and my loud and clear voice as I mentioned in question 1. I feel more confident and comfortable when teaching in the classroom and I established an environment that students are comfortable with. My second strength is that I have established a good relationship with my students and cooperating teacher. At the beginning of student teaching, students were either too shy or did not have faith in me so they asked the cooperating teacher for help instead of me. In the first six weeks of in-person teaching, they finally treated me as their teacher rather than “student teacher”. They greeted me before class started, shared their life stories to me, asked me for help during the class, and requested for extra tutoring sessions after class. The cooperating teacher has a strong faith in me as she let me take over the classroom totally. She gave me permission to do anything that could support students including seating charts, teaching strategies, teaching materials, contact parents, post materials on Google Classroom, etc. In question 1, I mentioned that there were two boys who always talked to each other during the class. I found an effective strategy to overcome this issue which was to separate their seats. Students had their seats changed after each marking period exam, so I rearranged the students’ seating chart based on their exam grades, personality, and gender which has later on proven to be effective in supporting student learning and classroom management. I assigned the two boys to sit far from each other and this strategy has successfully prevented the boys from talking too much and the result was pretty good.

Supporting underperforming students is the first element of instruction that I still need to improve at the present time. Algebra I was a course preparing students for the New York State Algebra I Regents which I was required to get through certain materials in 42 minutes. In addition, there were about 10 out of 34 underperforming students, therefore, I did not have enough time to spend on the two lowest achievement students. I always assigned their seats in the first row next to me, selected them to answer questions, reminded them to stay focused, monitored their works, asked them to attend my tutoring session (but they never showed up), and contacted their parents to reflect the situation. However, my strategies did not work as expected as they were still not interested in math and in-class tasks. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, schools were closed and we had to move to remote teaching and I did not have the chance to try out my new strategy, which was to scaffold instructional materials with a moderate level of difficulty and more manageable worksheets.

5. THE FUTURE

What plans do you have for continual self-improvement through your teaching career? Include at least 3 ideas. How were these plans impacted by COVID?

I have a plan to work on continual self-improvement in these parts throughout my teaching career. First of all, I would like to improve my instructional strategies. Since I am a member of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), I always look for journals and classroom resources on the website to support my teaching. When I was working on the lesson plans, edTPA, or I wanted to expand my view, my primary resource was the NCTM website. I will continue reading and studying from professions’ work through this wonderful platform. I will also continue learning instructional strategies by reading articles and watching videos on TeachingChannel and Edutopia. For example, I have learned how to use student’s mistakes to quickly clarify concepts based on Ms. Alcala’s video “My Favorite No” on TeachingChannel. I am looking to obtain an advanced certificate - extension in bilingual education so that I will be allowed to teach in a bilingual classroom. The second part is to review and practice mathematics. I plan to start reviewing 7-12 math topics and practicing Regents and SAT exams, then I will learn higher mathematics by taking some math classes in school or online. The third part is to gain teaching experiences. Although I have only had six weeks of student teaching, I have learned a lot from the cooperating teacher and my self-reflection. I am currently looking for a summer job opportunity to continue learning and practicing, but I am not sure how things will turn out during this unprecedented time.