Reflection


 * Lesson one:**

It was an interesting first lesson. I was a bit unsure about what was expected when creating this wiki page. It is something I will have to practice and get used to doing on a daily basis.


 * Lesson two:**

After viewing the video on rewards and punishment I understand why it is not beneficial to use these in a classroom. However, I do think that I will find myself unconsciously using rewards and punishment because it is something that I grew up with and experienced throughout my education career.

I think that having students contribute to the creation of class rules is a great idea at the beginning of the year because the students will now have ownership to the rules and will understand "why", and the students themselves can enforce the rules without too many reminders.

Kids are naturally competitive, but I do not think that this is necessarily a good way to motivate students. Students need to understand that each person accomplishes a task in a different manner, it is also correct, but it may just take them a longer time than someone else. Subjects like music and art is an individual subject, and once that student does the work to the best of their ability and then improve on it from there throughout the year, then that is success in itself. Having competition between different students is not something I would encourage, but having competition within oneself is a great way to create individual independence and a drive to complete work as well as improve upon themselves.

I think it is very important to make math relevant to students because it is an integral part of our lives. It can be a very small thing like going to the grocery store, but everyone uses math to make sure that they are not being cheated or spending more than they have to on a product(s). I would relate math to real-life situations for the students and show them that they already use it and it is not something that they have to be scared of.

**Observation Week:** I had a wonderful first week of school. My AT is very organized and over the summer came to the school and created things she thought she would need to make her classes go smoother and transitions easier for herself and the students. During the first week of school there was not much curriculum introduced to the students, but most teachers had students make title pages for their duo-tangs. My AT wanted to get to know her students and because the intermediate levels are on a rotary schedule, it was interesting to see how little was accomplished at this time, but at the same time the teachers were able to build rapport with their students.

Lesson 3:

Now that I have got through the first week of placement, I am getting used to using the computer more than I have over the summer. I thought it was very interesting to see Steve be the strict teacher and Lisa sticking to her ground. Seeing the stalemate that arose in that situation reinforced my beliefs that i want to be a teacher who observes her students and can pick up on changes in behaviour and can understand that there are stuff going on out of their school lives that may affect how they perform during class times.


 * Bell Work Reflection: September 15, 2010**

Question: What do you do when in your heart you know that the math concept you are going to teach is not relevant or important to your students?

Reflection: If I know that the math concept I am going to teach is not relevant or important to my students I would try to make it 'fun' or relate it to real-life where the students will be going on after this class and doing work that may not always be interesting. If a teacher is excited about something, that enthusiasm might make the students excited about the topic as well.

I thought that it was a fun class on Wednesday. Working on the definition of the assigned word and putting it on a placemat was very helpful in understanding what we as teachers knew, it also gave me an opportunity to appreciate the learning that can occur during a lesson like this. I think I need to get a better understanding on the 'timing' of some activities and determining how much time the students require to complete a task. I enjoyed reading the 'Math' stories and hearing about the different ways we, as teachers, can engage a student when faced with a 'boring' concept in math. I think that this is one method that can be used in many different grade levels, even high school, as literacy is also a very important component in the grade 9 math curriculum, getting students prepared for the EQAO testing.
 * Lesson 4:**

Lesson 5: This was a great class, continuing from our introduction of manipulatives during Math camp. This class introduced me to more online manipulatives available to me and the students to work on at home and at school on a SMART boards.