After starting teaching at a new school this year, I have taken on many new challenges this year. One of them is learning how to teach in a Math Lab, which consists of 56 students at a time. A challenge for my Imagine-It is to make this learning experience more personalized for each student so that they are able to get the most out of the Big Idea.
As I discussed this idea with the other two math lab teachers, I asked for their ideas on how to make this learning experience more personalized for each student. Some suggestions that they made were to create a setting that was smaller so the student teacher ratio is smaller. This might help support a stronger learning experience. In order to teacher smaller groups, the teachers suggested I teach the same lesson over multiple days. I can incorporate my STEM lesson into a couple days of math classes to enable me to teach my Big Idea to smaller groups.
I then asked a few of my students the same question and many of them said the same thing. They would like to work in groups to discover the concepts. They would also like to keep the same groups throughout the year. They think they would get a better learning experience out of it if they went on the journey with the same peers.
Reviewing this feedback, I can see that this might be an important aspect in order to make a strong impact on the learning experience of my students. I plan on finding a section of time over multiple days to teach lessons that align with my Imagine-It lesson. This way I can teach small group sessions. I also plan on keeping the groups the same, allowing the students to form closer relationships with their groups as we continue to grow together. The biggest take away from this is that in order to make this a more personalized learning experience, I want to teach smaller amounts of students at a time so that they are able to get a stronger experience.
As I discussed this idea with the other two math lab teachers, I asked for their ideas on how to make this learning experience more personalized for each student. Some suggestions that they made were to create a setting that was smaller so the student teacher ratio is smaller. This might help support a stronger learning experience. In order to teacher smaller groups, the teachers suggested I teach the same lesson over multiple days. I can incorporate my STEM lesson into a couple days of math classes to enable me to teach my Big Idea to smaller groups.
I then asked a few of my students the same question and many of them said the same thing. They would like to work in groups to discover the concepts. They would also like to keep the same groups throughout the year. They think they would get a better learning experience out of it if they went on the journey with the same peers.
Reviewing this feedback, I can see that this might be an important aspect in order to make a strong impact on the learning experience of my students. I plan on finding a section of time over multiple days to teach lessons that align with my Imagine-It lesson. This way I can teach small group sessions. I also plan on keeping the groups the same, allowing the students to form closer relationships with their groups as we continue to grow together. The biggest take away from this is that in order to make this a more personalized learning experience, I want to teach smaller amounts of students at a time so that they are able to get a stronger experience.