Team Teaching, November 29th

So many ideas and so much learning!

I was amazed by the lessons we have come up with. It just goes to show that teaching is a creative art!! I enjoyed the last class of teaching because it just made me realize how much we need to do for our students. Raylene and Peter's geoboards was very very interesting because I have never used a geobaord before. In my school experience, all we had was the sheet of graph paper with dots on them. So it was so much fun. I was finding shapes and just experimenting before I even knew what we were supposed to do lol. It just goes to show that the simplest learning for students can go a long way.
It was the same with Larissa's and Leah's lesson. They used tanograms. This was little more frustrating but it just goes to show that it is more important for students to construct their own learning without always looking to the teacher for the answer. When I was growing up, the teacher was the key to all problems. If we were stuck we would go to her/him and get the answer. We were always checking and re checking in the back of the door for the answers. If we had the right answer then we were good at Math. But now it's soooooo much more than that! The students hold the key for the answers and the teacher is just a guide. She is there to help students find more answers or different ways to find those answers. But we do not give the answers. With the tanogram lesson it was frustrating but once I got it, it was so exciting. I Did this on my own. I can do this was running through my mind. So if this was running through my mind, then the students would surely have the same thing.
Next it was Nicole's and Heather's lesson. Food is such a motivator for learning Math. It's amazing. The cake idea was so good that I was becoming hungry at the end of the lesson! Again it just goes to show how simple ideas can be the best ones to help students learn fractions or place values or even how to add or subtract. As teachers we need to find the best way for our students to learn. Using food can give them the visualization that some may need or it could just get them more interested. If we bring out lessons to them instead of bringing the students to our lessons the the involvement will more interesting.
The same with Angela's and Krista's lesson. Time is one thing that we used constantly! But finding a way to bring it to Math was very interesting. It just helps students learn about time management and organization. All kepy concepts that everyone should have. It was just really interesting to use a clock to count the time. I really enjoyed it.

All the lessons I have witnessed are all excellent ideas that we can use in our classrooms. We can diversify our lessons so that our students do not become bored. Even though some pen and paper tasks are required, at least we know that we can use different ways to help students keep interested.