Field Experience Reflection

For my observation, I spent most of my time with one 8th-grade math teacher at Northbrook Junior High. Overall, I think the teacher was knowledgeable in the content area and chose texts, mostly those traditional to algebra courses, that required students to use and develop disciplinary skills. Students had a wealth of individual and collaborative practice with peers in applying what the teacher presented, but there was still too much of a “pedagogy of telling” by the teacher in these classes.

I did see a few general literacy strategies in the classroom to help students read challenging texts. One I found interesting was a collaborative activity done in trios. Somewhat similar to a jigsaw, there were three different texts (word problems that could be solved using single variable equations) divided among the three kids. However, each student only started the work for that text by writing an equation according to what was described. Then they switched papers so that each student commented on and continued the work of their peer. Finally, each student practiced double checking the solution in the final rotation. This was an effective way to emphasize close reading, rereading, and corroboration in a way tailored to mathematics and the specific content of the unit.

Students were given opportunities to grapple with texts individually and sometimes in small groups. Still, it seemed to me that most of the thinking was articulated by the teacher and not the students. She showed great care when explaining solutions to homework or other problems, essentially as Think Alouds. The teacher modeled how to interpret the mathematical symbols, how they related to the prose of the word problems, which operations were needed, and that multiple paths might lead to the correct final answer. But she never allowed students to fill that role.

When the teacher asked for my input, I suggested (cautiously because I wasn't sure how honest to be) that she have the students explain their strategies to the warm-up problems of that day. I think it helped somewhat, but I feel like it was not effective as it could have been because the teacher was helping a couple individual students instead of prompting the student who was presenting. In one section, she noticed that the student had some incorrect steps. The teacher by no means belittled the student for the mistake but fixed the work herself instead of the allowing the student to do so. In fact, I heard the student start to say, “Can I try it again?” before awkwardly standing to the side as the teacher altered the work. I assume the teacher did not hear her question. Altogether, these experiences made me reflect on the importance of planning specific literacy strategies and of being flexible to what we see as students engage with the texts.