Why hello again, it's been a while! So much has happened over this 7 week hiatus and there's so much to share. I am proud to say that I have successfully competed my first teaching block and I had a great experience!!
I was placed at a high school in the HWDSB which is known for their academia and IB program. I taught a grade 10 academic math class and observed a 4C math class and a 2D science class. Over all, I had an amazing experience. My associate teacher and my students were great!
It was so nice hearing everyone else's experiences when we shared in class. As we shared in our struggles / challenges, surprises, best moments and things we still needed to master, many of us had things in common. For example, a lot of us had similar "best moments" when we saw how rewarding this career really is. It is so satisfying and fulfilling when those "ah-ha" moments go off and the students truly understand a concept.
I thought it was so neat how Liisa created the groups. She created these cards that with 4 different categories on them. Then for each question, we had to find the rest of the group members who shared the same symbol and each symbol had a corresponding question which we had to discuss. My card looked something like this:
This is a great way to randomly generate groups. It gets students up and moving around, and it creates a lot of variety since they're switching groups after every discussion. It also saves the teacher the hassle of creating groups! Sometimes it's hard to group students - I experienced this first hand during my block! The alternative is to let students create their own groups, but there are disadvantages in doing so as well.
When I created the groups during my placement, I had difficulties because I wanted to make sure all members of each group would work well together but I also wanted to separate and disburse the stronger students between the weaker ones. It was a challenge because I didn't want to group the same students together all of the time. So, one day I decided to number them off so that it would be random. However, this completely backfired because it worked out to be that one group had ALL of the strongest students and another group had ALL of the weaker students. By the time I realized this, they were all settled into their groups and had started working so I didn't want to disrupt that just to renumber them and have them lose valuable class time. So, I had to work with the situation. I definitely paid a little more attention to the weaker group and spent more time checking in with them to make sure that they knew what they were doing. Needless to say, creating groups sounds like an easy task but it has it's challenges as well! Liisa's method is very effective though, and I look forward to using it in my next placement and future classroom!
We also took some time to talk about destreaming at the end of class. I experienced a little bit of this during my placement as well. The school I was at has not started this initiative yet but my classroom almost seemed as if it had been destreamed already! I had students all over the map...I had students who probably should have been in an enriched math class and then students who should have really been in an applied level class. Of course there were also students who were properly streamed and truly belonged in this academic course. In my opinion, I do not think that we should get rid of the streams. However, they need to be properly placed. One of the greatest challenges I faced during my placement was trying to cater to all of the students since they were all over the map. I found that the students who were really advanced and who would have benefitted from being in an enriched class were not stimulated enough. On the flip side, the students who were barely passing where almost over stimulated to the point where they were struggling. Therefore, I definitely think there is merit in the streaming system, but the flaw is that students are not being properly streamed and therefore, it is hindering their success. The only downside of streaming is that it can also limit students since there are only certain pathways they can take depending on which stream they are in. But like all things, there are arguments for both sides.
As always, I will leave you with a joke: What did the calculator say to the math student?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"You can count on me!"
Feel free to comment your thoughts on streaming / destreaming!
Cheers,
- The Function(al) Teacher
I was placed at a high school in the HWDSB which is known for their academia and IB program. I taught a grade 10 academic math class and observed a 4C math class and a 2D science class. Over all, I had an amazing experience. My associate teacher and my students were great!
It was so nice hearing everyone else's experiences when we shared in class. As we shared in our struggles / challenges, surprises, best moments and things we still needed to master, many of us had things in common. For example, a lot of us had similar "best moments" when we saw how rewarding this career really is. It is so satisfying and fulfilling when those "ah-ha" moments go off and the students truly understand a concept.
I thought it was so neat how Liisa created the groups. She created these cards that with 4 different categories on them. Then for each question, we had to find the rest of the group members who shared the same symbol and each symbol had a corresponding question which we had to discuss. My card looked something like this:
When I created the groups during my placement, I had difficulties because I wanted to make sure all members of each group would work well together but I also wanted to separate and disburse the stronger students between the weaker ones. It was a challenge because I didn't want to group the same students together all of the time. So, one day I decided to number them off so that it would be random. However, this completely backfired because it worked out to be that one group had ALL of the strongest students and another group had ALL of the weaker students. By the time I realized this, they were all settled into their groups and had started working so I didn't want to disrupt that just to renumber them and have them lose valuable class time. So, I had to work with the situation. I definitely paid a little more attention to the weaker group and spent more time checking in with them to make sure that they knew what they were doing. Needless to say, creating groups sounds like an easy task but it has it's challenges as well! Liisa's method is very effective though, and I look forward to using it in my next placement and future classroom!
DESTREAMING
Source: Ontario Grade 11-12 Math Curriculum (p. 10), Ontario Ministry of Education
We also took some time to talk about destreaming at the end of class. I experienced a little bit of this during my placement as well. The school I was at has not started this initiative yet but my classroom almost seemed as if it had been destreamed already! I had students all over the map...I had students who probably should have been in an enriched math class and then students who should have really been in an applied level class. Of course there were also students who were properly streamed and truly belonged in this academic course. In my opinion, I do not think that we should get rid of the streams. However, they need to be properly placed. One of the greatest challenges I faced during my placement was trying to cater to all of the students since they were all over the map. I found that the students who were really advanced and who would have benefitted from being in an enriched class were not stimulated enough. On the flip side, the students who were barely passing where almost over stimulated to the point where they were struggling. Therefore, I definitely think there is merit in the streaming system, but the flaw is that students are not being properly streamed and therefore, it is hindering their success. The only downside of streaming is that it can also limit students since there are only certain pathways they can take depending on which stream they are in. But like all things, there are arguments for both sides.
As always, I will leave you with a joke: What did the calculator say to the math student?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"You can count on me!"
Feel free to comment your thoughts on streaming / destreaming!
Cheers,
- The Function(al) Teacher
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