A Final Blog: Synthesis of the Course

I learned a lot from this course.  Some of the main ideas were how to incorporate comprehension instruction, vocabulary instruction, oral language, writing/representation instruction, digital literacy, critical literacy, and differentiation instruction into my own class.

I think comprehension instruction is something that should always be a focus.  It helping kids understand the math with before, during, and after instruction.  I think I will probably do a lot of lectures in my classroom about math topics, but support the lecture with a fun activity to help kids discover beforehand or stabilize their understanding afterwards.

Vocabulary is really important in math!  I hope to teach my students vocabulary well enough that they can discuss math with other people using proper vocabulary instead of slang such as replacing "when you divide fractions you flip them and then times regularly" with "when dividing a fraction by another fraction, you invert the second fraction and multiply the numerators together to get the new numerator and multiply the denominators together to get the new denominator."  I plan to introduce only a few new vocabulary words at a time, but always incorporate old vocabulary into the lessons.  The new vocabulary will be thematically related, which shouldn't be hard considering I would introduce vocabulary about the topic we are discussing.

I will always be mindful of the diversities in my classroom.  If my classroom is linguistically diverse, I will try to incorporate the different cultures and backgrounds into my lessons.  I will also try to be mindful of English language learners.  I might not do much specific differentiation because let's face it...that takes a lot of extra time: something teachers do not have in abundance.  But, I do plan to teach so that all students, even those who struggle with reading or the English language, will understand.  I will use a lot of pictures, hands-on activities, and gestures.  I will have notes available online for students to access and will write my notes on the board as I lecture.  If I do have a student who really is struggling, I have no problem differentiating so they get the help they need.  I would partner them up with someone who is doing well or allow them extra time for assignments.  The most important thing is that the students are learning math!

Writing is something I had never really considered using in my math classes before this course.  Now, I am seriously considering using it quite a bit.  I think it is a great way to understand if students are actually understanding the math rather than just learning the remote plugging and chugging into formulas.  I think it's also a great way to have students assess how they are doing.  They can see where they don't understand and where they need extra help.  Writing helps them organize their thoughts.  Representation is HUGE in math!  I plan to use graphs and drawings all the time.  I know whenever I was faced with a math problem in high school, the first thing I would do was draw a picture or graph.  This multiple representation is great for students to grasp what is being taught.

I'm currently taking my capstone class and I have learned a TON about digital literacy in math.  We have learned all sorts of programs and lesson plans to help kids learn math through digital means.  The key is to only use these technologies if they compliment and enhance the lesson.  I am not going to use them just so I can use them.  I plan to use GeoGebra a lot in my class because it is easy to create applets that will help students who are visual learners or English language learners see what the numbers are actually doing.  I also hope to stay current with what the kids are using so that I can make math fun through the technologies the students enjoy outside the classroom.

Critical literacy is a huge part of mathematics.  Students need to learn basic math skills so they can apply them to everyday situations such as balancing a checkbook, making a budget, doing taxes, or telling time.  I would love to do a unit on practical math so students can learn to apply what we are learning in class to the real world.  Also, it is really important for kids to learn how to prove things rather than just take the teacher's word that a formula works.  They need to question everything and learn how to answer their questions.

I really did learn a lot from this class.  I enjoyed making lesson plans because that is something I had never really done.  I'm getting really excited now because I can use these lesson plans that I created in a couple of years when I have my own class!  They are much more practical to me than writing an essay about some novel.  I can't wait to go try these ideas out on students!