The days leading up to this week's class, I found myself going ahead in my posts to get a better understanding about what we would be discussing. This week the math mindset module had me exploring the connection between answering math problems quickly and student success in the classroom. When I viewed this video prior to class it made sense to me and I could understand the reasoning behind giving students a chance to ponder over math problems instead of requiring them to give speedy answers to display their ability. I had this in mind when I came to class this past Thursday. The first activity we performed involved mental math operations and required one person to figure out their answer after having a word problem read to the class. They would then reply that they have that number and would read their word problem so that the next individual who had that answer could continue the cycle. Interestingly, there was nothing mentioned about giving quick answers to these problems but you could tell from the very beginning that some of the future teachers in the room wanted to show everyone that they knew the answer first and couldn't stop themselves from blurting out the answer. This continued to happen even after being told not to yell out the answer. I had a little ah-ha moment as the individuals in the room who needed a little extra time to figure it out felt belittled by their peers yelling out their answer before they could figure out that they were holding the next piece to the cycle. I was reminded of the mindset module video and how it is better to give our students a chance to figure out the problem so that they can make deeper connections with the mathematical concepts.
As a future educator, one pedagogical concept found in the growing success resource really struck home for me. In class we had a chance to discuss differentiated content. I kept getting confused that differentiated content was modified curriculum, where teachers give students who are at a lower learning level different work with a different set of big ideas and expectations. Dr. Khan made sure to go over this thoroughly as he could see that there was some interest about this in the class. One point he made was that differentiated instruction involves educators giving their students parallel tasks that "meet the needs of students from different developmental levels but that get at the same big ideas and are close enough in context that they can be discussed simultaneously" (Khan, 2016). At first I even debated with another class mate about this because I felt that this still involved modification but he helped me to see how the overall idea and expectations are still the same with differentiated content. He said that the teacher anticipates the problems that the different learners in the room will encounter and creates other problems that will help those students to see the concept from a different perspective. They are still learning the same information but from a different view. This conversation with the instructor and that student has helped me to put a finger on the kinds of things that I can do to differentiate my content. This can be done by using graphic organizers, varied supplementary materials, compacting the material or flexible groupings for those students that struggle at math. All-in-all I had a lot of great ah-ha moments in this class and I have made the time to write these down in a journal where i can go back and view this information during my teaching block and future career.
Resources Viewed
Khan, S. (2016). EDUC 8P54: Parallel Tasks [PowerPoint Slides].
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