Blog 9: Lesson 1 Reflection

Lesson 1 Reflection

1. Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your lesson 1 presentation and why?
I am most proud of the confidence i had when i presented to the class. Usually I would be a little nervous, but this time I felt a lot more prepared to speak to the class.

2. Questions to consider

What assessment would you give yourself on your lesson 1 presentation?
I would give myself a P.

Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the lesson 1 component contract.
I did everything that I was supposed to do, and thats like a P.

What worked for you in your lesson 1?
Splitting up the possible answers and explaining why each fit into my essential question best.

If you had a tim machine, what you have done differently to improve your lesson 1?
I probably would have added a lot more detail pertaining the answers I gave in my presentation.

Extra blog

After working with my mentor for a while, I realized an important part of teaching any class is the assessments. Assessments basically determine how well a student is understanding the subject. So how do teacher assess how their students are doing? By having tests. Most students think test are the worst part of class, but little do they know that it is how they are being graded. Since most students only care about the grade instead of actually learning the subject, it is important to make test that revolve around it. When I asked my mentor about how she gets her assessments, she said she makes them. So we sat down and walked through how to make a test. The difficult part about creating a test for students is figuring out what is to difficult and what is too easy for the students. The test needs to be able to properly assess the students and to do that it needs to cover the subject entirely. 

Blog 8: Researching and working EQ

1. What is your working EQ?

What is the best way to teach students math so they can do better on the CST's?

2. What is a possible answer to your working EQ? Please write the answer in thesis format. 

• Students need to be motivated to learn and succeed in a classroom.
• One-on-one time with the teacher is very important for a student.
• Great work ethic is required for students to greatly advance in this field. 

3. What is the most important source you have used that has helped you come up with an answer to your working EQ?
"9 Strategies for Motivating Students in Mathematics." Edutopia. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2014. <http://www.edutopia.org/blog/9-strategies-motivating-students-mathematics-alfred-posamentier>.

This article talks about the different ways to motivate students so that they can do better in their classes.
4. Who is your mentor, or where are you doing mentorship, and how does what you are doing relate to your working EQ?

Mentor: Laura Murillo

Mentorship Location: Rivera Middle School

Reason: Laura Murillo is a math teacher at Rivera Middle School, and this is important because it gives me first hand experience at what teaching math to middle school students is like. 

Blog 7: Independent Component 1 Approval

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

For my 30 hours, I intend to go to continue with my mentor ship by helping create lesson plans and setting up activities, and by going into the classroom and working one-on-one with some of the students who are having a difficult time in the class. 

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

In order to show the 30 hours, I will probably bring in some materials that have been worked on, and the different scores that a students has gotten on test (taken once a week) since I have been working with them

3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

This will help me explore my topic by showing me first hand where some of the difficulties for understanding algebra lie, and how to help a student overcome them which is incredibly important. 

4.  Updated Senior Project Hours

Extra Blog: September

After searching for research on how to teach math in the first few research checks, I noticed something that came up a lot. Teaching math to Special Ed students seemed to be a difficult situation for most teachers. After seeing this pop up time after time, I decided to look into it and ask my mentor if she had any Special Ed students who she taught and how they reacted to the math curriculum. My mentor, Laura Murillo, said that she did work with a few Special Ed students who were placed into her class. She then referred me to one of her colleagues, Mike Lawrence. Mike Lawrence is a Special Ed Teacher at Rivera Middle School, who works with Special Ed students after they have been through my mentor's class. Mr. Lawrence average work day consists mainly of going over topics with Special Ed students after they have been through the actual class. Mr. Lawrence believes that teachers do a pretty good job at teaching the actual subject during instructional period, and thinks that having a person go over the material with the Special Ed student proves to be very beneficial. The main problem that Mr. Lawrence experiences when dealing with Special Ed students is their ability to focus and pay attention to a particular problem. Although this is a huge set back, most Special Ed students under his supervision seem to excel in their math courses and other courses they are taking. I think knowing about the students prior conditions should be an important aspect to consider when I am answering my essential question and I find that Mr. Lawrence might be incredibly useful to answer this. I will probably use Mr. Lawrence as an interviewee in our next interviews because of his abundant knowledge of teaching and helping students.

Blog 6: Second Interview Preparation

1. Who is your mentor and where do they work?
My mentor is Laura Murillo. She is a middle school math teacher and Rivera Middle School in Pico Rivera.

2. What 5 questions will you ask them about their background?
- What made you strive to become a math teacher?
- What college did you attend, and is it the one you wanted to attend?
- Did you always want to be a math teacher, and why?
- How do you feel about teaching middle school students?
- What aspect of being a math teacher do you most enjoy?

Blog 5 : Mentorship and Research Reflection

1. Describe your experience in how you found your mentorship. If you haven't found one yet, describe your experience so farina the search for a mentor.

Originally I had planned on my senior project being about teaching physics, however, I realized there are very few physicist around my area, and since it was the summer, none of the physics teachers were working. Eventually I realized it would be impossible for me to find someone with the little amount of time I had left. So I decided to look to other teaching positions in hope that it would prepare me a little for the teaching aspect of my original topic. I talked to a couple of teachers at the high schools in my area, but again they were one summer vacation, and wouldn't be able to actually help me into school started for me too. Finally, I turned my mother who is math teacher, and her district had started a week before we did, so I decided that she would be a good mentor. Since then, I helped her create lesson plans and clean up her class before school actually began.

2. What has been the most important article you have read so far and why?

I would say the most important article I have read is "Grade 8" by the Common Core State Standards Initiative because it helped me understand what is being taught to the students. Although I wanted to focus mostly on the teaching aspect of my senior project, it is imperative that I understand what is being taught so that I could understand why it is being taught a certain way.

Extra Blog: August

My senior project is teaching Middle School Math and although I haven't been able to go to the actual class and spend one-on-one time teaching students, I was still able to help my mentor out. I helped my mentor set up an activity where the student in the class created a human graph. By this I mean that students represented numbers and as a group they had to go out and graph the given function. The students would first line up on the x-axis with he number given to them, then they would plug their number into the function and move up and down the y-axis. The end result is that the students would actively experience xy-coordinate system to review its elements and be informally introduced to a linear function.

Blog 4: Interview Preparation

1. I plan to interview my mentor, Laura Murillo, because she has extensive knowledge of hot to teach 7th and 8th grade algebra since she has been doing that for 10 years.

2. 5 questions I want to ask:
2.1 What is the best way to teach 7th and 8th grade math?
2.2 How do the new Common Core Standards affect your teaching methods?
2.3 What kinds of problems arise from teaching teenage students?
2.4 Which topics are the most difficult for students to understand?
2.5 How do you handle students who do not understand difficult topics?
2.6 What is the best way to organize a class so that the students get the most out of it?

Blog 3: Topic Choice and Working EQ

1. Topic: 

Teaching 7th and 8th grade math.

2. Working EQ:

What is the best way to introduce new math topics to 7th and 8th grade students?

3. WB

The WB is posted on the right side of the blog under links.

Blog 2: Summer Mentorship

Literal: 

1. Link to mentorship hours.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E4IpBrBIdnRIGBsKEjXse-Y7BdvLsgA-WbFYxJy3370/edit#gid=0

2. Contact name and number.

I volunteered at Rivera Middle School in Pico Rivera.

Mentor: Laura Murillo

Number: (626) 975-1796

3. Questions.

What exactly is going to change with the switch to common core?

How will you be affected by the new teaching methods?

Will the students be able to adapt to the new methods?

Will the classes become more or less difficult because of the switch?

Interpretive: 

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience?

The most important thing I learned from this experience is that teachers still rely on teamwork to put things together. For example, there are about 2 or 3 math teachers for each grade level, and the all work together to figure out the most affective way to teach their math using common core. As I helped in setting up the basic lesson plans, it was apparent that the teachers worked a lot swifter with each other to achieve the goal. This was obvious a very important thing for me because although we practice this at iPoly, it was sort of weird to see it in an actual work environment. However, this showed me that it is a very important concept. 

Applied

5. My senior project is going to be about teaching math through common core. After going to these two days of I realized that it would be nice to understand the new common core system that everyone will be using. 

Blog 1: 2 hour presentation answers

What Presentations did you see? 

What questions do you have that haven't been answered about the senior project?

My main questions concern the components and things that just go into the actually making of the senior project. Also, all the requirements which we will learn as we get into senior year, I just feel like it could have been useful to know some of what we needed before we looked into the presentations. 

What is the most important part of the senior project based on what you have seen?

I feel that the most important thing about doing the senior project would be knowing the subject and being able to talk about it for an extra couple of minutes. When watching these, I noticed that many people would give up because they had no idea what to talk about and would end up making things up. If people had known what there subject was about, it would be so much easier for people to pass. 

What topic are you considering doing and why?

I am considering doing something relating physics. I thought about doing teaching physics, but I feel that inevitably it will all lead down to just understanding the essence of physics which I feel will be easier to do a project on. 

Where will you be doing your summer mentorship?

I haven't figured out exactly where I will be doing my senior project but I intend to look for positions in the area that have positions relating physics.