WHY I AM AN EDUCATOR
I have always loved mathematics and as person who holds a degree in the field I am often asked how I use the math I learned during my schooling. This was a valid question for five years after graduating with my B.S., when I travelled the world teaching outdoor environmental education, guiding outdoor adventures, and working in restaurants. On the surface there was no math involved in such pursuits, but through my diverse life experiences I’ve come to realize that my math education gave me a unique lens through which to view the world. A stellar math education is about much more than just obtaining hard skills such as plotting a graph or solving for x. My math education provided me with the invaluable abilities to think mathematically and critically and to be able to creatively and logically approach and solve difficult problems. These are traits that are essential for today’s citizen and, to me, are the most important outcomes of one’s mathematics education. I believe that the best way for me to better our society is to educate our students to be critical thinkers and problem solvers. Students see that I have passion, compassion and patience and that I truly care about them both as people and as math students. I know I can make a difference as a teacher, mentor, and role model for youth and have proven so through my outdoor and environmental education experience. Now I am ready and excited to do so as a classroom teacher.
CLASSROOM CULTURE
I believe classroom culture plays a crucial role in supporting students in becoming critical thinkers and problem solvers. I strive to cultivate a classroom in which all students feel that their voices and contributions are important and that it is okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them. Correct answers are valued but research shows that emphasis should also placed on the process and reasoning that students use to arrive at a solution and their strategies for communicating those processes to their peers. Through modelling and guided discussion I encourage students to treat each other with patience and compassion to create a learning environment where everyone is supported and appreciated. Additionally, my positive affect and strong rapport helps students know that I think of them as more than just math students, that I care about them as people, and am invested in their well-being and journey into adulthood.
PHILOSOPHY OF INSTRUCTION
My philosophy toward mathematics instruction stems from a constructivist theory of learning. During my student teaching placement I worked with my cooperating teacher to plan and implement effective lessons using a newly-adopted curriculum. We framed the entire class around the Common Core’s eight mathematical practices. I developed lesson plans that involved having students construct their own meaning of concepts through high levels of engagement, discussion, and differentiation. I focused especially on two practices: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them, and construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. I highlighted these practices and introduced concepts through low-floor, high-ceiling problems. This provided a way for me to differentiate instruction by allowing struggling students to begin the problem, and start creating strategies to solve it, while excelling students could go deeper with extensions. After students wrestled with the concepts, I used student evidence, thinking, and voice to drive sense-making discussions. This kind of facilitation worked to further develop mathematical concepts and procedures and resulted in students taking more ownership over the math itself as well their own learning.
In general, I believe in the merits of constructivist-based teaching strategies. I have found that students learn best when they discover concepts themselves and can make their own connection to mathematics. That being said, I also think it’s important to balance conceptual understanding with procedural fluency. In my experience students enjoy the math and get the most out of it if there is time spent discovering the concepts and algorithms followed by practice applying them. I have found in my own practice and in research studies that students can get lost if there is too much time spent on conceptual understanding and are more likely to forget algorithms or become disinterested if time is only spent on procedures. I am excited to implement and develop my teaching strategies in any context from middle school math to Calculus to and look forward to flexibly adapting my methods to content that I have less experience teaching.
ASSESSMENT
To effectively ensure my students are learning, I strive to employ multiple formative and summative assessment strategies. Strategies include a combination of constant monitoring and questioning, exit tickets, homework, voting tool (Plickers) data, notebook/binder checks, quizzes, and tests. I believe giving quick assessments often is most beneficial to improving student learning. These forms of assessment are essential for me as a teacher to know where my students are in relation to the learning targets and provide a platform for me to give feedback so that they know what they need to do in order to progress. One of my primary methods of formative assessment involves monitoring students’ in-class work by having them use easily-observable whiteboards and facilitating discussions within small and large groups. In addition to these multiple forms of teacher-evaluated assessments, it is critical that students get into the habit of self-assessing and taking ownership over their own learning. This is achieved by providing the students with clear expectations, multiple pathways to success, a system for monitoring progress, and a productive, comfortable classroom culture.
I have always loved mathematics and as person who holds a degree in the field I am often asked how I use the math I learned during my schooling. This was a valid question for five years after graduating with my B.S., when I travelled the world teaching outdoor environmental education, guiding outdoor adventures, and working in restaurants. On the surface there was no math involved in such pursuits, but through my diverse life experiences I’ve come to realize that my math education gave me a unique lens through which to view the world. A stellar math education is about much more than just obtaining hard skills such as plotting a graph or solving for x. My math education provided me with the invaluable abilities to think mathematically and critically and to be able to creatively and logically approach and solve difficult problems. These are traits that are essential for today’s citizen and, to me, are the most important outcomes of one’s mathematics education. I believe that the best way for me to better our society is to educate our students to be critical thinkers and problem solvers. Students see that I have passion, compassion and patience and that I truly care about them both as people and as math students. I know I can make a difference as a teacher, mentor, and role model for youth and have proven so through my outdoor and environmental education experience. Now I am ready and excited to do so as a classroom teacher.
CLASSROOM CULTURE
I believe classroom culture plays a crucial role in supporting students in becoming critical thinkers and problem solvers. I strive to cultivate a classroom in which all students feel that their voices and contributions are important and that it is okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them. Correct answers are valued but research shows that emphasis should also placed on the process and reasoning that students use to arrive at a solution and their strategies for communicating those processes to their peers. Through modelling and guided discussion I encourage students to treat each other with patience and compassion to create a learning environment where everyone is supported and appreciated. Additionally, my positive affect and strong rapport helps students know that I think of them as more than just math students, that I care about them as people, and am invested in their well-being and journey into adulthood.
PHILOSOPHY OF INSTRUCTION
My philosophy toward mathematics instruction stems from a constructivist theory of learning. During my student teaching placement I worked with my cooperating teacher to plan and implement effective lessons using a newly-adopted curriculum. We framed the entire class around the Common Core’s eight mathematical practices. I developed lesson plans that involved having students construct their own meaning of concepts through high levels of engagement, discussion, and differentiation. I focused especially on two practices: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them, and construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. I highlighted these practices and introduced concepts through low-floor, high-ceiling problems. This provided a way for me to differentiate instruction by allowing struggling students to begin the problem, and start creating strategies to solve it, while excelling students could go deeper with extensions. After students wrestled with the concepts, I used student evidence, thinking, and voice to drive sense-making discussions. This kind of facilitation worked to further develop mathematical concepts and procedures and resulted in students taking more ownership over the math itself as well their own learning.
In general, I believe in the merits of constructivist-based teaching strategies. I have found that students learn best when they discover concepts themselves and can make their own connection to mathematics. That being said, I also think it’s important to balance conceptual understanding with procedural fluency. In my experience students enjoy the math and get the most out of it if there is time spent discovering the concepts and algorithms followed by practice applying them. I have found in my own practice and in research studies that students can get lost if there is too much time spent on conceptual understanding and are more likely to forget algorithms or become disinterested if time is only spent on procedures. I am excited to implement and develop my teaching strategies in any context from middle school math to Calculus to and look forward to flexibly adapting my methods to content that I have less experience teaching.
ASSESSMENT
To effectively ensure my students are learning, I strive to employ multiple formative and summative assessment strategies. Strategies include a combination of constant monitoring and questioning, exit tickets, homework, voting tool (Plickers) data, notebook/binder checks, quizzes, and tests. I believe giving quick assessments often is most beneficial to improving student learning. These forms of assessment are essential for me as a teacher to know where my students are in relation to the learning targets and provide a platform for me to give feedback so that they know what they need to do in order to progress. One of my primary methods of formative assessment involves monitoring students’ in-class work by having them use easily-observable whiteboards and facilitating discussions within small and large groups. In addition to these multiple forms of teacher-evaluated assessments, it is critical that students get into the habit of self-assessing and taking ownership over their own learning. This is achieved by providing the students with clear expectations, multiple pathways to success, a system for monitoring progress, and a productive, comfortable classroom culture.