Holy cow did I get a wake up call today. After 3 weeks of absolute bliss, working with polite and motivated students all day every day, lessons going smoothly, a total lack of math teaching experience not holding me back, I finally had it. My first terrible math lesson.
Now, I've had plenty of terrible social studies lessons, but while social studies is about content and concepts, math is all about skills. Every day, I introduce a skill, show an example or two, the kids do some problems to learn the skill, then they do some more for homework to practice the skill. Next day, same drill. Seems easy, right?
It's not. With three levels of students working from three different math textbooks in each class, it can get very hectic very quickly. Last week things were going smoothly. Today, it all fell apart. My sixth graders are working on sequences and introductory algebraic concepts, and I'm pretty sure I managed to undo everything they've learned in one period today. Not quite sure where it all went wrong, but suffice it to say, it doesn't look like they'll be ready for Thursday's scheduled test...oh well. Tomorrow's another day. Maybe I'll go back to being the windshield again...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment