Blog #10: Final Thoughts & Reflection

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Good morning everyone!

I'm here to discuss my progress towards becoming a math teacher over the last two semesters. I have developed a lot since September, especially through my confidence in lesson planning, my ability to lead problem-solving activities, and working with my peers by sharing resources and ideas. 

This math course has been really great, as there have been so many opportunities to practice my math skills, as well as my teaching strategies, which has helped me build confidence in myself. Joyce has been excellent in facilitating discussions and introducing us to new tools and resources that us as teachers will benefit from. Rather than lecturing for 3 hours per week, she has given us the floor to interact with peers and to try out our own lessons and activities with the class. I have learned so much, so I thank Joyce and my peers for such a great semester!

I want to reflect on a few of my peers' blogs, as it has been great to read over their ideas and opinions that they have developed over the course. Julia's blog had a lot of great ideas as to why an open grade 9 math course is most beneficial for all students. This has been up for debate over the last couple of years, and she made some great points about challenging us as teachers, reducing the anxiety in young students, as well as it takes away the labels that some courses may assign to certain students. I think this is an excellent idea because we have been socialized to think that academic is better than applied and that once you're in applied, you're stuck there. We have learned that your choice in grade 9 determines what you can, or should I say CAN'T do when it comes to post-secondary. Having open-level math courses are super great as they can give students a chance to explore their understanding, and it helps us as teachers delve into different teaching and learning styles that we can learn to differentiate for. Shauna also had some really useful blogs that I will definitely refer to as a teacher, she was able to create a list where she identified great Virtual Manipulatives that can come in handy when teaching online or even in person. These manipulatives are great to accommodate all learners, as they are able to use their skills to apply their understanding. 

Speaking of understanding, I found that I have learned what it means to "understand" throughout this course and that this word is not as simple as we have worked it out to be. There is Instrumental Understanding, which is when students can use rules and they know what the rule is, but they don't necessarily UNDERSTAND the WHY behind the concept. Relational Understanding is when students are able to critically think and they know the what AND the WHY. This then leads us into how students are able to demonstrate their understanding and how we can assess it, when we know all students demonstrate understanding differently. The reading The Understanding by Design Framework (2012) identifies 6 facets of understanding, which are ways that students may demonstrate their understanding:

If we give students chances to apply and transfer their learning through these different ways, students will learn more, as well as they will be able to show their learning in a variety of ways.

Overall, this course has given me so many opportunities to practice my skills and develop new ideas from Joyce, but also from my peers! I can't wait to apply my learning to my teaching practices when I start my first teaching block in April!  
                                                        
Thank you everyone for following along through my learning journey, and I hope to share more as my teaching career takes off!


- Jenna

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