Blog 23: Final Lesson Reflection

1. what are you most proud of in your block presentation or senior project?
I think I am most proud of my independent component 2. By preparing students for the math field day, I was able to get first hand experience on working with students and teaching them different topics that they need to preform well on the math field day tests. I'm proud of this because I was actually able to work with students and teach them materials, in a way I was the teacher, and this is the best part of completing my independent component 2.

2. A) What assessment would you give yourself on the block presentation?
I would give myself a P because I completed all of the necessary requirements.

B) What assessment would you give yourself on your senior project?
I would give myself a P- because I completed most of the material on time.

3. What worked for you in the senior project?
Networking, I was able to show many of the teachers and administrators at my mentors school that I was capable of teaching a class of a few students certain materiel. From here I can tell that many of the teachers enjoy my presence and would be willing to work with me next year.

4. What didn't work for you in the senior project?
I would have been very helpful if we continued the research checks as a weekly assignment instead of whenever the teacher felt like it. I know it wasn't necessarily Mr. Rivas fault, and he was just trying to create a relaxed environment, but having weekly research checks would be awesome so that students do not fall behind like I did

5. Has the senior project been useful to your future endeavors?
Yes, the senior project has actually taught me a lot about what it is like to be a teacher and many skills that I will be implementing when i become a teacher. I want to teach physics when I get older and so it is pretty cool that I already know a lot about certain trick that will help that.

Blog 22: Mentorship

Literal: 

Done

Interpretive: 

I learned how to work with students which is really helpful because i plan to work with them in the future. It also taught me a lot about how students react to different teaching Methodist and people in the classroom. It also showed me the classroom flow and how things are set up. 

Applied: 

This has helped prove my best answer which is communication. This showed me that without proper communication, students can not succeed in the class and will often resort to doing childish things and not completing anything. This is bad. However, it proves my essential question and it is something many teachers need to work on. 

Blog 21: Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

What is the best technique to teaching 7th grade math in terms of maximizing scores on standardized test? 

My three answers are teamwork, communication, and patience. My best answer is communication. 

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

It was the best out of all the other answers. There were flaws in the other ones. 

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

Most of the problems were with he other  answers, it was pretty easy to get over them i just did not make them my best answer. 

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why? My best source is probably my mentor, she was able to give me first hand experience . My other best source was probably an article called Eight Grade Math Curriculum and Standards which taught me exactly what I needed to know about the math curriculum and what is being taught in school. 

Extra Blog: April

Pretty much were finishing up the senior projects and its almost time to present. I am currently freaking out out the idea of talking for an hour, but like i'm going to have to do it. I guess I will have to get over it soon and see what happens. I have been working on the things I am going to say and what my activity will be. I just hope everything goes swell, and I get a good grade.

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

Literal: 

a) I, Nick Ayala, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 37 hours of work.

b) Cite your sources regarding who or what articles or books helped you complete the independent component? 
Ellenberg, Jordan. "Don't Teach Math, Coach It." The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 July 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.

Hattar, Micheal M. MATH IS FUN. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

"Teaching Math: Grades 6-8: Communication." Teaching Math: Grades 6-8: Communication. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.

c) Update your independent component 2 log.
done

d) Explain what you completed.
For my independent component, I coached a group of students in order to prepare them for a math field day. The math field day, held at Glendale High School, this year is a culminating event for the math counts competition. What I did was coach the student on the different kinds of math problems they would be facing. Under my supervision, the students had to complete difficult problems in a short amount of time, work together to find a solution to group problems, and take many tests in order to prepare them for the actual Math Field Day. At each meeting we held, I would give the students warm up questions which they had one minute to complete, then I would move to the main activity, followed by a short test, followed by a debrief. The student who scored the best was usually rewarded with some kind of candy. This was incredibly helpful because first it helped me understand the dynamics of a classroom a lot more. It also prepared me for talking for 2 hours which is going to be helpful in my two hour presentation. Finally , this helped support my best answer because it showed that with proper communication, teachers could teach anything to anyone.

Extra Blog: March

This month I began working with students who were having difficulty with the classwork in my mentors class. By doing this I was able to see first-hand what worked when teaching students a difficult subject. For the most part it was just communication. Communicating the correct way to tackle the problems was an important factor that I had to work with the entire time. My mentor doesn't have time repeat herself over and over again so when it cam to these students, some clarification was needed for them to completely understand the subject. This just helped me decide which one of my answers the best. I believe communication is incredibly important and that when it is done correctly students will be able to understand any aspect of the subject.

Blog 18: Fourth Interview Questions

1. What is the most important part of teaching?

2. Do you believe that teamwork is important to learning math?

3. How do you implement teamwork into your classroom?

4. Do you find that students do better when asked to preform in teams?

5. How much time is set aside each day for teamwork?

6. IS communication important while teaching a math class?

7. What is the most dificult thing to communicate to your students?

8. How much time is set aside for actual lecturing time in class?

9. How often do you communicate with parents?

10. When communicating with parent what are some of the things you go over?

11. Is patience important while teaching a math class?

12. Did you find it difficult to transition from learning higher level math to teach lower algebra 1 material?

13. How much time is set aside for students to work individually?

14. How often do you check on your students and how they are doing on problems?

15. do you usually assign difficult problemns for students to try and then give them plenty of time to attempt them?

16. What time of problems do you assign for homework?

17. Why is your classroom set up the way it is?

18.How long have you been teaching?

19. How much time do you put into teaching math?