I always used to think that the mixed and open courses would be a little more challenging to teach. My reasoning was because there would be such a vast variety of learning styles all in one room and I would have to cater to all of them. In mixed classes you seem to get the "university-level" students, the "college-level" students and the students who fall far and in between. Its just as it's name infers - it's a mix! However, as I grew in my education and learned more about becoming an effective teacher, I realized that the mark of a good teacher is one who includes differentiated instruction in ALL courses that they teach, regardless of grade level/stream and subject.
This week, three of my classmates did their presentations on the grade 11 mixed course. I especially enjoyed Victoria's mini-lesson. Her lesson was on trigonometry and she created a scavenger hunt-esque activity. Each group would start with the question at their tables. Then, once they solved it, they had to circulate the room to find the answer which was located in a square at the top left-hand corner of another question. That would then be their next question to tackle. Once they solved that question, they would repeat the same process and find the next question to work on. Eventually, they will end up where they started.
I thought this was a great idea! It's a fun way to get students to do the same practice questions that they would have normally done but it wouldn't be coming straight out of a boring, old textbook. It also gets the students up and moving around! It adds a bit of friendly competition too. Although you may not explicitly say that it's a race, students sometimes infer that it is and they like to compete against each other. However, we may want to shy away from this since being the fastest and quickest isn't always best. Sometimes, it just leaves more room for error!
The only downfall of this type of activity is that sometimes the tables got crowded if certain groups work quicker than others. Furthermore, with the groups being so large, often times it was one person doing all of the work. I think that in a regular class setting, I would just have the students work in pairs in order to avoid this. It is easy to fade into the background and become idle in a larger group setting.
I know you've been dying to get through this blog post to see what this week's joke is 😉
What did the baby tree say when it looked in the mirror?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"Gee...om-a-tree!"
Cheers,
- The Function(al) Teacher
This week, three of my classmates did their presentations on the grade 11 mixed course. I especially enjoyed Victoria's mini-lesson. Her lesson was on trigonometry and she created a scavenger hunt-esque activity. Each group would start with the question at their tables. Then, once they solved it, they had to circulate the room to find the answer which was located in a square at the top left-hand corner of another question. That would then be their next question to tackle. Once they solved that question, they would repeat the same process and find the next question to work on. Eventually, they will end up where they started.
I thought this was a great idea! It's a fun way to get students to do the same practice questions that they would have normally done but it wouldn't be coming straight out of a boring, old textbook. It also gets the students up and moving around! It adds a bit of friendly competition too. Although you may not explicitly say that it's a race, students sometimes infer that it is and they like to compete against each other. However, we may want to shy away from this since being the fastest and quickest isn't always best. Sometimes, it just leaves more room for error!
The only downfall of this type of activity is that sometimes the tables got crowded if certain groups work quicker than others. Furthermore, with the groups being so large, often times it was one person doing all of the work. I think that in a regular class setting, I would just have the students work in pairs in order to avoid this. It is easy to fade into the background and become idle in a larger group setting.
I know you've been dying to get through this blog post to see what this week's joke is 😉
What did the baby tree say when it looked in the mirror?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"Gee...om-a-tree!"
Cheers,
- The Function(al) Teacher
Comments
Post a Comment