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.