Learning Goals

I'm coming into this course with high hopes for myself and the advances that I hope to make in my own teaching of math. While I felt that I was always proficient in math in elementary school, it was never a subject that really got me excited. I hope that is something that I can change for my students in the future. In this course I want to explore math in ways that I have not done before. In my placement my CT integrates partner and group work into math on a regular basis. As a student of math, I always viewed it as a solitary activity, which perhaps contributed to less enjoyment on my part. Integrating math into all subjects is important to me because I never want my students to have to ask, "How are we ever going to use this?" I definately want to spend some time focusing on how to reach students with varying levels of interest/ability in math. Even though I was a good math student in elementary school my lack of interest in math correlated to poorer math grades by high school. I have to admit I do occasionally worry about teaching math, not because I'm intimidated by the material itself, but that I will inadvertently resort to some of the same techniques used by teachers that did not peak my interest in the past. We briefly discussed the ineffectiveness of worksheets that asked students to repeat the same problems over and over in class last week and that just reminded me of so many experiences that I have had in math classes in the past. Above all, a goal that I really have for myself for this semester is to more deeply explore ways to captivate student's interest in math. I want to do this by reflecting on the types of math assessments that I can use to really determine a student's learning and how to tailor my teaching to reach the desired effect.