Kim

Mazzucco
March 1, 2016
SED 399-01

Daily Reflection #1

At the beginning of todays lesson, 6 students were sent over from a class where the

teacher was absent. I didnt have enough worksheets for them too, since I had just planned
on teaching to my students, so Mrs. Meyer got laptops from the room next door so that
these students could work on i-Ready lessons. Because of these extra students, there were
not enough seats for my students, so some sat at a back table together (the only available
seating) and proceeded to disrupt my lesson and ignore my instruction, despite my many
attempts to focus them. The first two rows were extremely engaged, on the other hand.
They answered every single question I asked. I fear though, that the rest of the class may
not understand the homework because they werent paying attention in class.

I started off with the Word Splash Activity. I grouped the students into 5 groups and

assigned them to start at certain posters to write down everything they could remember
about unit rate, proportions, expressions, variables, and equations. This went well. Some
students wrote definitions, while others wrote examples. Some students needed a little
guidance, which I provided them with. Overall, each poster had plenty written on it. These
will be added to as the semester goes on. I then asked them to complete the pre-test. I told
them just to try their best and put down something for each question, but many students
ignored the pretest altogether, despite my nagging for them to do it, and left the test blank.

When the lesson started, one student would not stop walking around the room and

disrupting the lesson. After the third time, I told him he had a choice, that I could either call
security to escort him out of class, or he could sit down at his desk. He refused to sit down

and I had a security guard buddy him out to do his work in another class where he would
be less distracted. This did not solve the problem though. This student returned twice after
sneaking out of the classroom he was buddied out too, but Mrs. Meyer took care of him and
brought him back both times.

The heart of my lesson consisted of the students helping the teacher complete two

ratio tables. Then they would graph the data and find the slope to interpret it as the unit
rate. As I said before, the students sitting at the front were very engaged, but the rest
seemed to not be paying attention. I gave time to go over the exit ticket at the end of the
lesson, but not too many students paid attention to that or when I tried to explain the
homework. Then, I ran out of time to sum up what we did that day.

Overall, it was not the greatest day. I thought the use of Goldfish crackers would

keep the students more engaged, but that was not always the case for each student. After
reflecting with Mrs. Meyers after class, I realized that I need to introduce a signal to the
class to let them know when I need them quiet and listening to me. She also suggested that
I let the class do some problems on their own, rather than doing all of them as a class. She
thinks that may have been the reason they were so talkative. I had to yell a lot today just to
be heard over the students. Im hoping that tomorrows lesson will run a bit more
smoothly.
Daily Reflection #2

Today was a much better day than yesterday. I had planned on doing a Do Now

activity that involved the students receiving notecards with two plural nouns on them that
were to be used to create a word problem to be solved with a ratio table; however, since I
felt that most students were distracted during the previous lesson, I decided to move this

activity to later in the lesson to allow for time to review how to find slope, given a set of
ordered pairs. About 75% of the students answered correctly, which is more than I could
have hoped for!

I, then, used the Do Now problem to introduce the topic of the day, which was

comparing proportional relationships represented in different ways. The class worked

together to help the teacher complete the Grocery Store task, which involved finding the
unit rate of a table and comparing it to the slope of the graph. After this, I revisited my
original Do Now with the notecards and had the students work independently, writing a
problem and then trading with their neighbor to solve. I had two students write their
problems on the board and we solved them as a class. We didnt end up having time for the
next part of the activity, which involved creating a different data set and comparing the
two; so, I handed out the exit ticket and told the students they had to hand me the
completed exit ticket before going on i-Ready. Then, they spent the last 30 minutes of the
block on their respective i-Ready modules.

The students were not fully engaged the entire class and it was difficult to get them

focused at times. They were the most focused at the beginning of the lesson though. I did
establish a hand signal to let the class know when I need them quiet and listening. It only
works about 50% of the time, but thats more than I can say about yesterdays lesson.

Its difficult to address the needs of each individual student in the class because the

students we just got from another class are clearly more advanced and sometimes seem
bored with the material; but my original fifteen students have never seen this material
before. I gave the more advanced students their homework early so that they could finish it
before they left, which worked in the sense that everyone was doing something at all times

during the class, but I still think they may be bored. Im hoping that tomorrows activity,
which is more engaging, will grab their attention more. I suppose well see!

Daily Reflection #3

Today was a rather interesting day. Overall, Id call it a complete disaster; but some

good did come out of it. Some students said I was moving too fast and that was why they
werent understanding the material. While I do believe this was a part of what was going
on, I also think it is hard to concentrate when there are kids yelling obscenities and running
around the classroom while Im trying to teach. The good that came out of this though, was
that I have created a completely new plan for teaching the rest of my unit. I will only be
covering the material from the first week of my original unit, but spreading it out over the
remaining 5 days of teaching I have left. I would rather my students fully understand a
couple of things than only partially understand a lot of things. Naturally, this is going to be a
lot of work on my part to create new lesson plans, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

One girl complained that they were learning new things everyday. This just goes to

show how behind this math class is. In a typical math class, a new topic is covered
everyday, but there are so many distractions in this class, that this hardly ever happens and
students have grown accustomed to it. Mrs. Meyer told me that they learned slope a few
weeks ago, but already they have clearly forgotten; so I am going to return to the basics and
reteach it, because everything else I plan to teach builds off of this concept.

Ive been trying out dynamic activities with this class, but each one has flopped

unfortunately. Thus, I plan to return to more direct instruction because this class clearly
needs structure. I plan to use guided notes in class, seeing as I have never seen a student

taking notes in a notebook. Hopefully, they will then hold on to the guided notes to study
for the test and subsequent less-formal assignments; but even I know thats a stretch. I will
report back on how everything goes tomorrow!

Daily Reflection #4

Today was an awesome day! And the best thing about it is that I recorded todays

lesson! Because yesterday was such a disaster, I went home and reworked the rest of my
unit. Today, we just focused on slope, because it seemed like some students got it, while
others were completely lost. Devoting the entire day to slope benefitted both kinds of
students though, because it gave the ones who already understood it more practice, while
allowed the students who were unsure of their abilities a chance to return to the basics and
get the foundational knowledge before moving on to more difficult material. The other
material in my unit also builds off of the idea of slope, so the students need a good
understanding of the concept in order to succeed moving forward.

I started off by making an announcement to the class. I told them that after the

previous class I realized that they were right; I was moving too fast. I told them that I have
reworked the rest of my unit because I would rather them understand a lot about a few
concepts than understand a little about a lot of different concepts. That being said, I handed
out some guided notes for the students to fill in the blanks to regarding slope. This included
the definition as well as the more formal and informal formulas for calculating slope. I also
included an image that I found of a slope tree. It shows what positive, negative, zero, and
undefined slopes look like. Im hoping that they will use these guided notes to study for the
exam next week.

Overall, I feel like the reason today may have been so nice was because two of the

most troublesome students were absent. This worries me because they will not have had
this foundational lesson to build off of. Because of this, Im going to try to work with them a
little on their own next week. The class started out with only 8 students but grew to about
16. Students trickled in late because of the snow. Also, the math coordinator came in to
help students too. It was nice having the extra support, but Im worried that I wont be able
to handle all 21 students on my own. Hopefully, next week will be just as lovely as today!

Daily Reflection #5

Today was another rough day. It seems like every other day is a bad day and its

incredibly discouraging. Today we were covering comparing proportional relationships in

different representations again. We went over this last week, but I dont think the students
really grasped what we were doing. I created a guided notes sheet to help the students
work with moving between the three different representations (graph, equation, and
table). Although I thought this sheet would help them understand, in the end, I dont think
they understood because they were constantly talking throughout the lesson. I have tried
everything at this point and I just cant get them to stop talking. Yelling doesnt seem to
work. Ive also tried saying Ill wait, but they still continue to talk. They just dont care
about what Im trying to teach them.

I also gave a quiz today on graphing proportional relationships, which we did last

week. I gave a Do Now beforehand that I told them was exactly like the problems on the
quiz. I told them that if they can complete and understand the Do Now, that they would do
well on the quiz. After we finished going over the Do Now, I asked for questions. No one had

any questions, so I passed out the quiz. As soon as the students got the quiz, they had no
idea how to do any of the problems. They couldnt even fill out the ratio table they were to
be using to graph, and they covered that for the three weeks leading up to my unit. I
suppose Im just frustrated that the material Im teaching builds off of the material my
cooperating teacher just taught; and if they couldnt understand that in 3 weeks of
repetition, then how are they going to grasp the material Im teaching them. My
cooperating teacher told me that sometimes you just have to move on, even if only half of
the class understands because these students function at such a low level, that it could take
months to get through to them. That idea just completely goes against my nature. I dont
want to move on if I know for a fact that some students dont understand. I guess that is
what frustrates me most.

In addition, there are two students that have been suspended for the last two

classes. What am I supposed to do when they come back? I cant afford to take class time to
catch them up because I barely have enough time to get through the material I want to get
through as is. I want to get through to these kids so bad, but they are making it impossible. I
can only hope that tomorrows lesson goes a little better than todays.

Daily Reflection #6

Today was a relatively good day. We covered material that we already covered last

Thursday, but that the students hadnt fully understood. They said they were confused by
the similar triangle activity that I had planned, which is understandable, because looking
back at it now, it didnt have a whole lot of structure. So today, we worked on finding the
slope of a line using two different sets of points. Then I showed them how the rise over run

creates similar triangles no matter which two sets of points you use. We started out by
doing a Do Now in which the students had to find the slope of a line using any two of the
five points I plotted along the line. When going over the Do Now, I asked for volunteers to
give the points they used. We found the slope using different sets of points so that they
could see that the steepness of the line doesnt change. This led into a worksheet that I had
the students work in groups to complete in which they had to repeat what we did in the Do
Now.

After my conference with Professor Davis, I realize that my lessons in general need

more structure. This could be as simple as referencing the timer I have put on the board to
let students know how much time is left to work on a worksheet. I also need a solid
beginning and end to my lessons, with transitions in between to connect everything
together. The students need to have something to do at all times and it seems that I struggle
with that. Hopefully the last three days I have teaching at Kilmer will reflect this
constructive criticism. I will certainly try my hardest!

Daily Reflection #7

This day was not the best teaching day, but not the worst. Professor Cunningham

observed me this day. The topic of the day was the slope-intercept form of the line
(y=mx+b). The students had never seen this before, so it was completely new material. I
started out class by passing out guided notes with an empty box next to each variable in the
y=mx+b equation for what each variable means. I also included an example equation at the
top so that we could point out as a class both the slope and y-intercept given the definition
of each variable. In theory, I thought that these notes had a lot of structure and would be
easy to follow, but I was wrong. Most students were confused even when I simplified

everything I was saying. Either way, we got through the guided notes and did some
examples on the board where I gave them an example equation (like y=1/2x+2) and they
had to identify the slope and y-intercept by referencing their guided notes and studying the
graph that I drew on the board. Once I felt that at least half of the room got what we were
doing, I handed out a worksheet with equations in the form of y=mx+b which they had to
study to identify the slope and y-intercept. Some of the students got this right away and
complete the worksheet in 5 minutes, while others were still lost at the end of class, even
with the one-on-one help.

For the majority of the class, when one side of the class wasnt off task, the other

was. It was impossible to keep everyone focused at the same time, except for the very
beginning of the lesson. Even Professor Cunningham tried to get the kids to quiet down by
picking up a desk and setting it next to the talking students to get them to stop. This ended
up being somewhat counterproductive as he almost dropped and tripped over the desk,
making the students burst out in fits of laughter. Overall, as Professor Cunningham pointed
out, little to no learning really took place during this lesson. Professor Cunningham thought
I did a good job with what I was given though. He just couldnt believe how disrespectful
the students were.
Daily Reflection #8

This day was a project day. Since the students had learned about the slope-intercept
form of the line the day before, this project concerned exactly that. It was called the Stained
Glass Window Project. The first worksheet contained four boxes with about 6 or 7
equations in each one. Each student was to pick two equations from each box and write out
a few points in the tables below, in case they struggled with graphing using the y=mx+b

formula. After they picked their equations, they were to graph them all on the big
coordinate plane provided to them. Once this was done, they were to come to either Mrs.
Meyer or me to check that they had plotted their lines correctly. From there, they were to
go over their lines in marker, label them, and then color in the sections created by all of the
intersecting lines. Although it seemed straightforward, it seemed like every student in that
room needed individual help. Mrs. Meyer and I were constantly running around the room
trying to help everyone. At the end of class, some students hadnt even started graphing
their lines on the coordinate plane, and others had almost finished coloring in. Because
there was such a wide range of completeness, I decided to give them more class time the
following week to complete it and I will collect them after spring break. I didnt want to
assign it as homework, because I was scared the kids wouldnt bring them back, which is
almost a certainty.
Despite the fact that some of the kids were super behind on the project by the end of
class, I think that the majority will be completed by the time I return after spring break,
which is good enough for me. I plan on hanging them around the room once the majority of
students are done. Overall, it was a relatively successful project day.

Daily Reflection #9

This day was a test day. I had planned on having the students complete a quick Do

Now first that would show up on the test as a bonus question. So I figured if they paid
attention, they would all get the bonus. Even though I mentioned that this would end up on
the test, barely anyone paid attention. As a result, only one student of the tests Ive graded
so far got the right answer. When I passed out the test, I found out that five students were

leaving in twenty minutes to go on an ice-skating trip. I still handed out the test to these
students, but told them they would be given time the following week to finish the test. A
couple finished in that 20 minutes, but some only got to the first page. The rest of the
students were also having trouble with the test, even though I made it significantly easier
than it was to begin with. I tried to help as much as I could, without outright giving the
correct answer, but students still remained confused. So, I decided to give these students
time to prepare over the weekend (which I doubt they will actually do). I told them they
could finish their test with the students who left for the ice-skating trip sometime the next
week, most likely Wednesday. Only about 6 students completely finished the test in class.

Students who finished or decided to finish their test the following week were asked

to work on their Stained Glass Project from the day before. If they finished that, I printed
out worksheets with brainteasers on them to keep the students busy. Some of the students
seemed to really enjoy these! Even though the test was somewhat of a disaster, in the end,
the class time was used productively. And after this week, everything will be completed
and ready to be graded.