Module 5- Teaching Practice

Module 5

In this week, I had an observation done by my Stevenson Mentor, MaryCarol. She provided me with detailed feedback for my lesson for my Algebra 2 class on discovery of Hyperbolas.My feedback included tightening up lesson plan activities to hold students accountable for activities. This is something that I know I need to include and plan to implement next week and going forward. Furthermore, MaryCarol recommended observing other veteran teacher in the department as they teach to learn from them because of my situation as a teacher to find new and better ways to handle questioning techniques. In addition, it was recommended that an exit ticket be given to assess student understanding of the material for the day. I did not include one originally because this lesson is a two day lesson with the second day having a poster presentation and each group member has to understand the material in order to complete the poster. Another recommendation for the classroom was a different seating chart that would be more supportive of collaboration. My online concern for this is my Algebra 1 students are too loud and I am concerned of having four students at a table together. So this change will be considered going forward. 

In the last week, my students did a better job of meeting classroom expectations and many students since interim grades came out, are realizing that they need to complete their homework so I had to print out extra copies of the original homework assignments. Now, the parents are invested in the students' grades because they saw poor grades. I am hoping that poor grades will lead to parents getting involved by forcing their children to complete their homework even though it is not graded. I have stressed the importance of homework and practice in relation to doing well on exit tickets and quizzes, but some students do not want to believe that they need to complete the work because they have a good grade so far. They, however, ignore that they material we have covered is mostly review so far. 

Going forward, I expect my successful students who do not complete their homework to face challenges because they may struggle with future materials. I am trying to instill a desire to complete homework regularly because the extra practice will result in total understand of concepts from class. I want my students to responsible for their own education and see me or ask questions when they do not understand.