In my classroom there will be goals on the bulletin board. I will put different goals up on the board each week to give the students the responsibility of achieving goals daily. This will give my students responsibility in the classroom instead of always relying on me to tell them each day what their goal is. When I mean goals in the classroom I actually mean assignments or projects that we do during the week that need to be achieved by the end of the week. From previous experiences when students achieve a goal it makes them more ambitious and willing to accomplish the next goal.
Another aspect that theclassroom will have is that everyone will be respectful to each other during the 50 minutes that they are in my classroom. For a student to succeed it is hard enough without others making fun of one another or talking about each other. In my classroom nobody will judge one another by an answer or question in my classroom. There is not a dumb question in my classroom if it helps the students learn. I will also respect my students and give them the up most attention while in my classroom.
Technology in the classroom . . . if someone would have said this during my high school years I probably would have thought they were crazy. My high school education consisted of sitting in old desks, taking notes in a spiral notebook, and listening to the teacher lecture the whole 50 minutes. We thought it was cool that the school had an intercom to communicate with the office from the classroom. When I was in high school the only technology that we used were computers and old ones at that. I was on yearbook staff my junior and senior year and that is the only time that I used technology while I was in high school.
Observing in a classroom setting my very first time in college, I was astonished at how much technology was used in the classroom. I observed at a new high school building under a math teacher and she used a lot of technology in the classroom. I took a lot of ideas from her classroom because the students actually engaged in the topic and it was a lot of fun for the students as well. I believe that technology is great idea in the classrooms today because this is a technology world and technology is a lot of what students use today. Using technology in the classroom would help tie together school work with the student. I found a YouTube video showing how well technology has worked in an Oklahoma teacher's science classroom:
Ideas For Technology In The Classroom
I have a lot of ideas for technology in my classroom. First of all, each student would be able to use a laptop in the classroom. I would go over a lecture and then my students would get on the Internet to find different ways and methods of solving the same problem that I did on the board. I decided to do this because not every student learns the same way. Some like learning each problem step by step and then there are some students who want to learn a shorter way to do the problem and still come out with the correct answer. The Internet is full of different ways and methods of doing mathematical problems and my students will become well-rounded in math by learning different methods and ways of doing math.
Another idea that I came up with for my classroom does not have a lot to do with technology as the first one. While I observed in a classroom I saw students doing math projects. Sometimes it is very challenging to find math projects for the students to do in a specific subject area. The students in that classroom learned about Pascal's triangle and the teacher printed off patterns that the students could choose from and while working out the triangle it made a pattern. The students got to design it and color it any way that they chose. I want my classroom to not only be a lecture type class but also a well-rounded classroom where students learn by doing different things each week.
I also have the idea of having a math fair just like a science fair. I found a great website for high school and middle school students where they can pick and choose from the list and that could be their large project for the semester. The students would be able to use the Internet, library books, videos, etc. anything that they can find that relates to their project topic. I noticed that a lot of students enjoy doing the science fair projects so why not do a math fair project? Here is the link where the students would pick a project from in their specific grade: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/Intro-Math.shtml
Teaching mathematics is not a very easy job, especially in high school. Math has always been perceived as the hardest subject in school. Mathematics takes students to perceive numbers in a totally different way especially when it comes to algebra, trig, and calculus. Math makes you go "out of the box" so to say and think about ideas in a totally different way. I hear a lot of times that "I will never use this in the real world once I graduate" but to be honest everyone uses math in his or her daily tasks. Without math we would not be able to add how much our grocery bill is each week, how much our bills will be per month, or even how many pairs of shoes a teenage girl has in her closet. We use mathematics a lot more than what we think we do.
I want to become a math teacher because I want to make learning math educational but also fun. I want to get away from the stereotype that math is hard and show each student that they can succeed in math just like any other subject. When my students leave my classroom each day I want them to have a deeper understanding of math. I want to be not only a teacher and role model to my students but I also want to be an encourager. I want to encourage my students that they can succeed daily and to never give up on a dream. I want to be able to help my students not only in the classroom but in life itself. I am also going to be the teacher that comes early into school and stays late in the afternoons to help any student that has questions about math.
That is the number one question I receive at least once a week. Changing my major from nursing to math / education was definitely a huge change for me. My biggest inspiration for math was my junior high school teacher Mrs. B. I went to a small Christian school in center point and with a graduating class of only 25 there were not a lot of subjects one could choose from. I started loving math my first year with Mrs. B. She was the teacher that one wishes every child would get. She not only gave me my strong background in mathematics (especially in algebra) but she also showed me that I could do anything that I put my mind to. Mrs. B. was very serious about her math classes and every student knew it to. We would play algebra games in her classroom the day after we learned a new subject to get each student familiar with the new equations. She made math fun and interesting, not scary and terrifying like most students perceive math to be. She would come into school early and stay late in the afternoons to help each student succeed in her classroom. Mrs. B's math classes were the hardest classes at PCA but she encouraged each student to strive in her classroom. I want to be a great math teacher just like Mrs. B. was and to always encourage my students that they CAN do math and that they can succeed in anything that they put their mind to.
