My Philosophy

When I sat down and completed my first lesson plan I felt it had plenty of, what I thought to be, good ideas and strategies. I was confident that my ideas and thoughts were clear, and there would be only a few corrections to make. However, as I now think about how my lesson was laid out, there were definitely some critiques that I should have expected from Dr. Mathews. If this plan was being evaluated by a traditional mathematics teacher, he or she may have seen it as exemplary. In contrast Dr. Mathews is trying to develop a "new mathematics teacher" and knowing this now, I am not surprised by his comments. Though I do admit, I was initially shocked, but as I read and made sense of them, I could see the reasoning behind the critiques. One of the comments he made I could see coming before hand. That comment was in regards to my opening activity. I was not shocked because it was not very engaging. Dr. Mathews felt that I had an engaging opening in a classroom presentation but in my lesson plan the activity was really "old school".
As I worked on refining my lesson plan, using the comments as a guide, I noticed more and more that the plan did have traditional methods and could be improved. The constructivist approach was not really evident in my initial plan. I noticed how in my classroom presentation the initial conversation got the class engaged and this is what I needed to construct a more powerful lesson. I also noticed that I had some algorithm problems as one of my task, which I know is not the best way to promote a constructivist plan. As I progressed through my refinements I also noticed that there was no point in my original plan where I thought to "let go", but in hindsight "letting go" is a must. I can definitely say that I can see the change in my thought process through the lessons in Dr. Mathew's course, and I hope I am able to apply this approach in the classroom and have positive results.