I was fortunate enough to get to go to a conference this week with one of my colleagues from Animas High School. What a great experience that was! In many ways, I find that I am already attempting to conduct my class in the ways that are being advocated for by all of the various experts. Which is really encouraging. However, my class is still not always functioning in the manner that I hope that it will, with students being engaged and enthusiastic, and working hard because they see value in the material.
Although my practice is right, my toolbox is still small, and I am still building familiarity with the tools I have at my disposal. This last week, and in weeks prior, I have had my students reflect on a variety of different things, from their own processes and thinking, to how well they understand a concept, to their efficacy in group work. I have had mixed results, mostly because I do not think I have been scaffolding my students into deep, purposeful reflection enough (or perhaps it is because some of my students are notoriously difficult and just don’t do the work, but this is not the whole truth). After getting to observe other master teachers, and participate in a lot of activities involving thinking strategies, I am excited to apply some of the techniques I learned. Specifically, I am looking forward to being more explicit with a workshop model, scaffolding various thinking strategies for my students. I want to be very specific with which thinking strategies they are supposed to be focusing on, and how they can be building proficiency with that. Specifically, I will be working on having my students develop their skills surrounding their ability to access background knowledge. This will be pertinent in the coming weeks as we are shifting gears to a new unit requiring geometry skills, which my students have not worked with for two years. I am excited to be more explicit with my directions, give better demonstrations of good reflection, metacognition, and self-reflection, but also allow my students more time to grapple with their own thinking. I also plan to be more focused in my questioning and advice. Hopefully, this will help me to help my students more effectively!
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Julian SpringerMath Department - Animas High School Archives
December 2019
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