Grove City College, PA
Mathematics
This page will contain different aspects of a course I took at Grove City College, EDUC 327.
This class focused on teaching elementary math.
Math Methods
I plan to implement thinking activities into my classroom. We read a book called "Building Thinking Classrooms" by Peter Liljedahl. I plan to use many of the ideas and strategies provided within this book. I will be encouraging students to pursue different strategies to getting the correct answer. We have learned strategies to handle misconceptions in class and I plan to use this knowledge to help my students fully understand the mathematical concept.
Mathematical Story
Field Experience Reflections
I was in a 1st grade math classroom. I loved learning from the teacher I was with and received so much good feedback to help me towards becoming a better teacher. I showed up and was given 2 students each time to work with. They ranged from the highest in the class to the lowest, and I did not know until after I taught. So, it was always a challenge adapting my lesson to their academic needs, but it really pushed me to be a better teacher.
Sample Lesson Plan
Community Involvement
I took part in a Stuffed Animal Sleepover in the Early Education Center on Grove City College's campus. Preschoolers left their stuffed animal at school overnight and we took it around campus and took photos of it doing fun things. Preschoolers loved to see what their stuffed animal did at the sleepover. It was a great way to make coming to school fun for the children.
Professional Development
I listened to several episodes from Christina Tondevold's podcast, The Build Math Minds Podcast. I listened to "Math Textbooks Have the Teaching of Fluency All Wrong", "What is Computational Fluency", and "Standard Algorithms Compared to Computational Strategies. All 3 were very insightful but I want to focus on the first two listed. She talks about the 3 core ideas that make up computational fluency: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Flexibility. She goes into a lot of detail on Flexibility. Current math textbooks are teaching students several different strategies to solve a problem. But the author of this podcast stresses the need for STUDENT developed strategies. If they are given strategies, it will confuse them. Once they are flexible in their learning and truly understand. it will help them achieve accurate answers efficiently.