Gemma Holdman MAE5945 02/18/2013

LEARNINGENVIRONMENTREFLECTIONS
Wednesday February 6th, 2013 1. The strategy I focused on this day was demonstrating warmth and friendliness. As teachers it is important to find a healthy balance between being the authoritative figure and a role model/friend. I wanted to assess my actions and behaviors related to this strategy. 2. The three classes I had went well. No new material was covered because students had a test the following day. For this lesson I selected about 15-20 problems for students to work on individually as a review. If students had difficulties with a problem, I instructed them to ask for help. When students raised their hands I would go over to their desks and crouch next to them. I like to stand or crouch beside students, as opposed to front-on, because I believe it is not as intimidating, especially to those students who arent comfortable in their environment. I believe that students appreciate that action. Whenever I talk to students I always try to address them by name and make eye contact. It is important for students to know that their teachers know them not only as a student but also as human beings with feelings, interests, and personalities. When students realized I remembered their names and a couple details about them they seemed pleasantly surprised. I believe those little actions add up and students start to respect me as a teacher. School can be very serious, sometimes quite boring and dull for students. With this being said I like to spice things up in the classroom and add a little humor. If I make a mistake or get tongue-tied I like to make fun of myself to lighten the mood. This shows students that I am human and we all make mistakes. Showing them this side of me allows them to be more comfortable in my presence. 3. I believe I did a good job demonstrating warmth and friendliness to my students but I can always make improvements. In each class there is a select number of students who are outgoing and talkative. Due to their loud personalities I speak to them quite regularly. Some of the quieter, shy students I do not talk to as much. I need to make a bigger effort to communicate with all students on a regular basis both the talkative and non-talkative ones.

Gemma Holdman MAE5945 02/18/2013 Monday February 11th, 2013 1. Stimulating learner interest is important, especially in subject areas that students often have difficulties with. If students are not interested or engaged in a lesson it is less likely that they will pay attention to the material being taught by the teacher. I decided to choose this strategy to focus on for this day because of the lesson topic slope. 2. Slope can be a boring subject to learn. It discusses rise over run for a line in a graph. I would imagine when most students learn this concept it does not stick well in their memories. For all three classes I taught I introduced the lesson by showing a video of a rollercoaster. For the students that liked rollercoasters they were engaged due to their personal interest. As for the students who did not like rollercoasters, out of fear of heights or similar reasons, they enjoyed the video because they experienced the rollercoaster without actually physically riding it. A rollercoaster is a prime example of a real world object containing various slopes. I believe I did a good job personalizing the lesson and introducing the concept from an interesting angle. Almost all of my students appeared to be engaged after I showed them the video. Having already captured the attention of my students I was able to move smoothly into the next portion on slope. High school students are required to take notes to learn the main concepts in a mathematics class. Notes are good but in my opinion pretty boring. To spice up the lesson even further I adapted a foldable on slope. The foldable had the main components already filled in so students didnt have to spend their time quickly writing down the notes. I could spend more time explaining the actual concepts and providing examples. Students seemed incredibly grateful to me for mixing it up and creating a more interesting way to take notes. 3. I stimulated student interested by incorporation a fun video related to the lessons main concept but I can continue to improve using techniques to stimulate student interest. In the future I plan on incorporating more questioning strategies to truly get my students to think. Currently, they have difficulty answering basic questions related to the concepts. I need to start developing higher-order questions that are thought provoking.

Gemma Holdman MAE5945 02/18/2013 Tuesday February 12th, 2013 1. For this particular day I chose to focus on opportunities for students to engage in interpersonal communications. It is crucial for students to communicate with one another. I may be their teacher but students can also learn a lot from their peers. A few times a week I incorporate some type of group activity so students can interact with one another. 2. The lessons I had planned for the day focused on writing linear equations in the main forms point-slope form, slope-intercept form, and standard form. For the elaborate activity I created a set of 8 equations with each equation being written in the three different forms. Each student received either one or two equations. The goal was to find the other two students with the matching equations. This activity promotes interpersonal communication. Students had to interact with all other classmates to find the matching equations. Earlier in the lesson students had learned the different forms. Some students were more familiar with the forms than others. My 4 th period class had issues understanding what they were meant to do. It was then that I realized I needed to have written instructions on the board to complement my verbal instructions. My 5 th period class had a couple questions at the beginning of the activity but then quickly accomplished the task. The class size for 5th period is small and students are much quieter and focused than the other two periods. The last class of the day, 6 th period, is the largest class, and they struggled just like 4 th period had. After all three classes I realized that students are not used to working together to reach a goal. Group projects are a large component of many college classes as well as real world jobs. If students have a hard time communicating and working with others they will struggle to succeed in their futures. 3. It is crucial for students to be provided opportunities to engage in interpersonal communications. From now on I want to create more group activities that enable group work. This will help my students to become successful working in groups and communicating with peers. I also need to provide both written and verbal instructions. This will help differentiate; some students are more audio and others visual. I need to take that into consideration too.

Gemma Holdman MAE5945 02/18/2013 Wednesday February 13th, 2013 1. The learning environment strategy I chose to focus on was communicating personal enthusiasm. Humans pick up on eye contact, the energy one is projecting, and the tones used to emphasis certain points. This being said, it is important for me to pay attention to the enthusiasm I am demonstrating to my classes. I would not want to pay attention to a teacher that is speaking in a monotone voice, standing behind a podium, and looking down; I highly doubt my students (being teenagers) would either. 2. Todays lesson focused on graphing linear equations. I had originally planned to use a PowerPoint presentation to play a game with my students. Unfortunately we had technological issues and I had to improvise. Material must still be taught to students even when a problem arises. In this situation I did not get flustered and frustrated, I just moved on. Throughout the note taking process I asked students questions to assess their understanding. When I ask my students questions I either select a volunteer or choose a specific student. Whoever I question I always use eye contact and thank them by name. Whenever I talk to students I like to smile and repeat anything important they say to the rest of the class. I think students need this because it provides them with subtle positive feedback. When I am providing students with the information to place in their notes I do not stand up at the front of the classroom reading the notes. I take frequent breaks, move around the classroom and look at my students. If students are aware that their teacher is paying attention to their behaviors they are less likely to act out of line. Projecting a positive energy is important. It is said that the attitudes and personal energies are contagious. If the people I am around are very upbeat and happy I notice that my moods match theirs (and the same for negative attitudes). I would imagine there are a lot of people like me in that regard. So if I give off a happy, positive, upbeat energy to my students then they will more likely have the same. Students who have a positive energy are more likely to pay attention and be interested in the material than those who have negative attitudes. I treat all three of my classes quite similarly with this strategy. No particular class receives more or less enthusiasm than the others. It is important for all of my students to witness the components involved with communicating personal enthusiasm. 3. I think my use of inflection points, eye contact, and energy improved the classroom environment. I will continue to use these attributes in future lessons. With more practice teaching I will get more comfortable stressing the important concepts and ideas I am getting across to students.

Gemma Holdman MAE5945 02/18/2013 Thursday February 14th, 2013 1. Helping learners develop positive self-concepts is the last strategy I focused on. Feedback and respect are crucial to having a healthy learning environment in the classroom. Students need feedback to know how they are doing, progress wise. Learning cannot successfully occur if respect is not present among all members in the classroom. 2. Todays lesson was on parallel and perpendicular lines. When students, for all three classes, enter the classroom I greet them and ask them how they are doing today. I believe students appreciate this because it tells them not only do I know who they are but I also care enough about them to ask. Until the bell rings I talk to students and prepare for my lesson. I like to judge and identify the humor styles of each student. Some students do not joke around and are quite serious. For those students I play off their personality. Other students include humor when they speak and use sarcasm. For those students I am a little more humorous and do include sarcasm. I do not, however, use sarcasm against any student for that would be demeaning and inappropriate (whether or not they are generally sarcastic). Whenever students answer a question or do a problem on the board I like to give them feedback. If they do well I will make statements like great job, thank you ______, wonderful, or some other positive phase meaning well done. When students do not answer the question or problem correctly I like to lead them into another question so they can analyze their answer. I never use negative tones because we all make mistakes and it is important to encourage students to learn from them and move on. For instance, a student today made an error on the board. I asked him if the slopes were negative reciprocals of one another. He looked at the board and said yes. Then I asked him what it meant for two numbers to be negative reciprocals. He stated the definition and found his error, changed it and smiled. I do not like to tell students youre wrong but rather lead them to discover their mistake. 3. In the future I will continue to provide students with feedback, whether they answer the question/problem correctly or incorrectly. I treat all students with respect, no matter their backgrounds, personality, etc. I only use sarcasm when the specific student I am talking to enjoys the banter. I do not and will not be sarcastic to the whole class. I will always monitor my speech and only say things that I believe will help my students and foster a positive learning environment.