Praises and What Worked

I’m finishing up my third year now as a math teacher.  And I am definitely still learning.

Each year, I survey my students and ask them a few simple questions.  You know, stuff like

• What did you enjoy the most about this class?
• What did you least enjoy about this class?
• What is one thing you would change about this class?
• If you could tell me one thing about the class, good or bad, what would it be?

Of course there are more. But then this year, I appended a few more questions to have them do a quick self-introspection and asked them questions about their classroom performance, what they thought Algebra was, if math had to be fun in order to learn it, or if they even just like math.

We’re on block scheduling, so I haven’t received responses from my 4th or 6th periods yet, but I’ve already gone through my odd periods and have learned much for next year.

1. My teaching style and my attention to individual understanding
2. Allowing opportunities to work with others and the teacher
3. Patience
4. Not being intimidating when students are asked to participate
5. Variety of activities

Drawbacks and Improvements

1. Volume in the room during group work
2. Too much homework [??? I'm not so sure about that one, haha]
3. Air Conditioning [!!! I completely agree, but my shack in the back of the room is being demolished this summer!]
4. Boring
5. Be more strict on homework being turned in [Still haven't found a homework policy that works...suggestions anyone?]

Those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.  There are definitely more strengths and weaknessess to be addressed.  But two of them really stood out to me — boring and homework.  Maybe it wasn’t always the most mentioned, but they were the ones that bothered me the most.

Each year, I’ve tried something different for homework.  I still haven’t figured out something that works for me.  How do I get them to turn it in?  How do I give feedback? How do I “process the paperwork” quickly? GradeCam will probably help somehow, but I can’t figure out an effective way yet.

And also, boring???  Oh, come on! I mean, I can admit there are some boring days, but you can’t avoid that in any class. But how could the class as a whole be boring?! It’s math! Okay, I understand that not everyone enjoys math like me, but I have been in math classes that do the same thing every day, for long periods of time.  I make it a point to change activities or modes as much as possible.  I seem to have a short attention span, and I can’t stand a boring class.  How is it boring? And if my class is boring, how are they ever going to survive college?

I have a lot to think about for next year. Hopefully that’ll give me some things to write about during the summer.

Less than 2 weeks.