Dylan Ryzner

Student Teaching Journal Entry #6

Despite this week being short due to the holiday on Monday, it was still a very busy week for
student teaching. There was less instructional delivery time this week due to the holiday and the
students taking a test on Wednesday, but there is much to be done outside of teaching time.
During the review for the test on Tuesday, I took my mentor teacher’s advice about discussing
student answers even if they are not the correct answer. I was asking my students how we can
write 1 month in terms of years to do an interest calculation. One student gave an answer of
30/365, which is great thinking, but the answer I was looking for was 1/12. Instead of not
acknowledging the wrong answer, I took advantage of the teaching moment and explained how
not all months have 30 days in them, so 30/365 is not as accurate as 1/12. I think taking the time
to explain this was worthwhile, because certainly there is another student in class (or watching
the recording) who had the same thoughts. The other piece of advice that my mentor teacher
gave me about avoiding the term “bucks” when talking about money has also been on my mind
while I am teaching, as I actively try and avoid saying it. We started a new unit that is covering
stocks and bonds, and I am excited for this new content because there is a lot that I do not know
about the stock market, so I am learning as well. Also, I think the students will enjoy this unit
because the calculations involved are not as complicated as ones in previous lessons. The
students also seemed to enjoy the activity that we worked on in class today, as I had students tell
me that they had fun during my class, which made me feel great. The activity we worked on (and
will continue to work on) was a stock simulation, where we are given $10,000 of fake money to
invest in different stocks. Today’s lesson involved the students picking out which stocks to
invest in and how much to invest in each stock. Other teachers who are teaching the same class
are also involved, and we will compare how well our class stocks did compared to the other
classes’ stocks throughout next week. As far as responsibilities outside of instructional delivery,
this week’s math department meeting discussed different ways to accommodate students who are
falling behind and have an abundance of overdue lessons. There was a lot of time spent
brainstorming different ideas between all the math teachers, and a plan was developed and is in
the process of being implemented. It was great to see the minds of all the teachers come together
to create a solution to a problem we were faced with. I am also still reviewing results from the
benchmark testing that was done last week and referring students to math support if they are
under a certain threshold. I also attended two IEP meetings for students, which was very
interesting to experience because the helpfulness from all of the teachers was very evident. The
ongoing battle of trying to stay in touch with 130 content students and around 20 homeroom
students continues to keep me busy. Lastly, the professor for my seminar course with Drexel
gave us a week without any assignments due, so that is a nice breath of fresh air. I am looking
forward to my next week in the student teaching adventure, as I am excited to continue learning
and teaching and I am eager to find out how well we did on our simulated stock market
investments.