During the fall of 2014, I had the privilege of working with Paul Yu from Grand Valley State University and his students that were taking a Teaching Geometry and Measurements course for Elementary teachers. I know, I teach 8th grade, but these college students were digging into the middle school Common Core Math Standards and he thought my classroom would be a great place for them to test out a few lessons. I thought so myself too! Why not let a class of college pre-service teachers take over teaching two of my four hours of 8th grade math for one week? I didn't know them, I didn't design the lessons (just was able to comment and see them via google docs), all I had to do was trust them! (If it's a math class from GVSU, I trust them!)
The college students stopped by the first couple weeks in October to meet me and see what the classroom environment and set us was like. I had them jump right in and help students, interact with them via technology (Classkick app) and work in small groups. The last week of October they would all be teaching four lessons and the topic they picked was transformations. They concentrated on 8.GA.1 which deals with properties of translations, reflections and rotations. The college students were in groups of four and two of them would show up each day to teach the lesson. One would do the instructing while the other was observing and taking notes. Paul had some magnificent schedule set up behind the scenes and they incorporated the lesson study approach to teaching all four lessons. They would meet back up for their scheduled college class, debrief and be sure the other group members knew what went well and what needed to be changed going into the next day's lessons. I had my students split into small groups so that each group of GVSU students had a smaller group (6-10) of 8th graders to work with all week. It actually ran much better than I expected.
One of the hardest parts of the whole experience was figuring out what I was going to teach to my afternoon classes of 8th grade math. Th GVSU students only taught 1st and 2nd hours and I wanted to keep my 4th and 6th hours on the same page. Luckily I have a 30 minute DEAR (drop everything and read) period, which I wan't a good model for that week) and lunch before my afternoon classes. I didn't like being "unprepared" but yet it allowed me to see the lessons in action, take the best pieces and mesh them together for one lesson taught by me. I didn't do much "flipped" teaching like I normally do but my students said later that it was a nice break from our normal routine.
The lessons the GVSU students taught all involved investigation both with and without technology. They used geogebra a ton, which I was thankful for because I learned a lot too! They used mirras for reflections and half circles of cardstock to do rotations.
Having pre-service teachers in my classroom is a passion and something and I feel I need to do to give back. I enjoyed this experience and would do it again!
The college students stopped by the first couple weeks in October to meet me and see what the classroom environment and set us was like. I had them jump right in and help students, interact with them via technology (Classkick app) and work in small groups. The last week of October they would all be teaching four lessons and the topic they picked was transformations. They concentrated on 8.GA.1 which deals with properties of translations, reflections and rotations. The college students were in groups of four and two of them would show up each day to teach the lesson. One would do the instructing while the other was observing and taking notes. Paul had some magnificent schedule set up behind the scenes and they incorporated the lesson study approach to teaching all four lessons. They would meet back up for their scheduled college class, debrief and be sure the other group members knew what went well and what needed to be changed going into the next day's lessons. I had my students split into small groups so that each group of GVSU students had a smaller group (6-10) of 8th graders to work with all week. It actually ran much better than I expected.
One of the hardest parts of the whole experience was figuring out what I was going to teach to my afternoon classes of 8th grade math. Th GVSU students only taught 1st and 2nd hours and I wanted to keep my 4th and 6th hours on the same page. Luckily I have a 30 minute DEAR (drop everything and read) period, which I wan't a good model for that week) and lunch before my afternoon classes. I didn't like being "unprepared" but yet it allowed me to see the lessons in action, take the best pieces and mesh them together for one lesson taught by me. I didn't do much "flipped" teaching like I normally do but my students said later that it was a nice break from our normal routine.
The lessons the GVSU students taught all involved investigation both with and without technology. They used geogebra a ton, which I was thankful for because I learned a lot too! They used mirras for reflections and half circles of cardstock to do rotations.
Having pre-service teachers in my classroom is a passion and something and I feel I need to do to give back. I enjoyed this experience and would do it again!