Today was a fateful day when I received an email at 7 am from my AT telling me that she had to be away for the day to take care of her toddler son who has been feeling ill the previous night. Although it was supposed to be my observation day, I welcome the chance to demonstrate my flexibility and ability to adapt to changing situations as a teacher.
The morning was with the grade 10 applied students and my AT had BEDMAS worksheets prepared for them to complete. I originally thought I would encourage the class to work on these problems like a Thinking Classroom activity, however, upon checking the student questionnaires they completed on the first day, I found that some students really didn't like group work. I wasn't really sure what to do at this point because having just written a research paper on how to use worked examples to teach by having students work in groups to engage in self-discovery, I really wanted to do this activity. My hopes were further dashed when I noticed that only 10 students showed up to class and thus group work and rotations doesn't seem very feasible. Nonetheless, I wanted this day to be worthwhile. I knew that as a student, I didn't like it when my teacher was away and all that was assigned to us were worksheets because I came to school to learn. I wanted to do something that was different in classroom than what students can do at home on their own time. Knowing that I would be "teaching" each class, I arrived to school early and I started the class with a debate on pancakes vs. waffles. It wasn't surprising to me when pancakes won (even though I'm in favour of waffles all the way! - Its shell allows the syrup to stick to it better) as students somehow always seem to prefer the soft, fluffiness of the pancake vs. the crispier waffle. Anywho, maybe I'm just getting old! I then asked the class what they would like to do with the worksheets. If they wanted to try group work, I was more than happy to set that up for them. However, the class was torn between asking me to take up some examples and them working on it independently. To compromise, I said let's try both. I walked students through the first question and showed them some clarification concepts along the way. For example, there's a common misconception that the B part of BEDMAS stands for the brackets, but it's actually for the stuff inside the brackets. (3)^2 is an exponent as opposed to the bracket part of BEDMAS. Another common misunderstanding is that -4^2 = 16 but I showed students the difference between (-4)^2 vs -4^2. When they were working on the questions themselves, I encouraged them to work with an elbow partner if they felt comfortable and I also took the time to ask the teacher on call what she thought about group work. With her expertise, she mentioned that sometimes she would try to encourage all students to try group work as the students who shy away from it could have one bad experience. I will really consider this thought in the future. Find a good balance between pushing students outside of their comfort zone and allowing them to still feel comfortable. The class was working really well during the entire period, so I promised them we could play a round of "Heads up 3 up" (modified from 7 up due to the size of the class) which they seemed to really enjoy. I wanted to end my first day with them on a good note after all (especially since it was a Friday) :). With the grade 9s, my AT was supposed to do a Scratch tutorial with the students however, I also barely knew Scratch as I mainly worked with Python. Nonetheless, I took this as a learning opportunity to show students my vulnerability and asking for help from some of the students who were more proficient at it than me. We started the class off with a Kahoot! trivia game on superheroes and logos for the second period class and on food trivia for the class right after lunch. I think this really got the students riled up as one of the things I really missed out on with online teaching was the classroom management. Everyone is so silent in an online classroom. I gave the students 3 options of activity though; madlids, a scavenger hunt, or Kahoot! to which they greatly chose the later. With Scratch, it was a more "learn as you go sort of platform" and I really got to see some of my students shine, especially in the class after lunch who had some proficient students. I loved how they were helping each other as opposed to me intervening for all 26 students. Since these students were finished a bit earlier, I also asked them the pancakes vs. waffles debate to which waffles actually won this time! One student mentioned how it was easier to freeze coming from the waffle iron as opposed to pancakes made on the stove top. I loved how these students thought about concepts and cannot wait to teach them in a week's time.
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