from place value to subtraction strategies

I felt the rollercoaster of emotions last Thursday and Friday that comes with being a ‘beginning’ (student) teacher…maybe just being a teacher in general?? I was pretty disappointed about the way a lesson went on Thursday and felt confused about my teaching goal, my TWS and myself. Then on Friday, I got to Sumas, spent the morning there and left feeling exactly the opposite of how I felt on Thursday.

On Friday morning, Carole (my CT) helped me to determine if the students had understood, for the most part, my teaching goal of place value. She came up with a quick and efficient formative (almost post) assessment and generally the students did great. After we determined that I felt a huge sigh of relief and was able to approach that days lesson with a new attitude. The lesson went well and I felt good about the way I stayed true to my teaching goal the whole lesson, exploring subtraction strategies. I left feeling renewed, motivated and excited to be moving from one teaching goal to the next with some success…hopefully that will stick for both the students and myself!

Things that went well: My select and sequence of student examples was the most purposeful yet during this lesson. I noticed that I picked student examples and the order that I wanted them to share with more purpose then I have previously. I definitely need a lot more practice with this but felt confident in what I did do on Friday. The students were really great also. I have been stressing silently and quickly when transitions need to happen and been mentioning both how much time they have to do it and even linked it to the school rule of ‘getting business done’. I felt this worked and they were really quick and efficient when getting to the carpet. They seem to be really engaged during this lesson (for the most part) and felt solid about the way the subtraction strategies were introduced. I will be excited to work with them again on Monday.

Things I would change for next time: Although I felt I did my best yet with sequencing and selecting I still feel as though I could have highlighted all of the subtraction strategies if I had been better at deciphering student work. I have a feeling every strategy was out there. Next time, I hope to talk with students more and have them explain their work to me explicitly so that I can get each strategy. When we make our posters with student work on them to put on the walls as a resource I will try to make this happen. Also, as much as I enjoyed the discussion and felt it was worthwhile, I wish I could have been more succinct with it so they had more time to practice and put the strategies to work. Lastly, I mentioned and few times that they needed to be clear and concise when writing down their work and communicating their thoughts but did not visually model this, which would have been helpful and more meaningful.

Questions and thoughts: TIME!!! I felt as though I went longer with the discussion then I was ‘supposed’ to according to the curriculum but I felt the discussion was solid and that students were engaged. This is a constant battle. I wonder what it is like when you don’t need to physically move to another…. Is it easier or harder when you have the ability to lengthen your lesson depending on what is happening. I find I get so wrapped up that I lose track of time easily. This will be something I need to work on because it is my responsibility to keep track of time. That continues to be a challenge for me. I tend to lose the closing discussion time because of this too often.