Overall, my teaching experience has been very eye-opening! In our practicum courses, we get to read about teaching theories and how they should be applied in the classroom. We learn about the importance of differentiated instruction, time management, and the importance of inclusion, but I feel that I have not truly grasped these concepts until this practicum. I have learned how in depth each concept of teaching is and how difficult they all can be to incorporate daily in the classroom. I tried my hardest to make sure that I gave every student in the class the opportunity to succeed in their math class, but due to the lack of experience, lessons didn’t always go as well as planned. Though some days (particularly the first couple of days), seemed a little chaotic every once in a while, I did come out of my two weeks of teaching with a better idea of what kind of teacher I want to be when I have a classroom of my own.

There were many things that I feel that I could improve upon when I have a classroom of my own. I learned that time management is really hard to master! I caught myself multiple times giving these drawn out explanations on concepts which I found would be more difficult for the students to understand. I would be half way through my lesson and I would look up at the clock to see that I would only have thirty minutes left of class time. I just really wanted to make sure that nobody was left behind and that everyone understood. This actually ended up hindering some of my lessons because I would run out of time, which would leave me very little time to touch base on the remaining concepts. Time really flies by when you are in front of the class and you really care about every student comprehending the material! I think that I would benefit from creating more mini-lessons and enrichment activities on those harder to understand concepts. The couple of times that I did do this actually worked out really well. This would allow more time to teach everything which is expected, plus time to give students extra help with concepts once I am finished introducing and explaining them.

Another part of time management that I struggled with was when I would ask a question and almost every student wanted to answer it. I didn’t want to leave anyone out, so I would go through every student that had their hand raised. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I didn’t love the fact that they were engaged and actually wanted to answer questions but when that happens over and over again, a lot of classroom time is lost. I also noticed that many students would get off track with what I was actually asking, and after about ten students had already had the chance to answer, the remaining answers would be a little off the subject. I just didn’t want to make the students feel as if their answers were not important. I need to find some way to give every student the opportunity to answer, without taking up so much class time doing so. If there were less worksheets and more time to learn, then perhaps this wouldn’t be such as problem. When there is such a small amount of time to introduce numerous concepts, time management is crucial to the overall class period.

During the second week of my teaching, I introduced centers to the students. I was amazed at how well they responded to the different options in math class! Though they are in centers all morning during language arts, the idea of centers in math class was new and exciting for them. I was impressed by how well they worked and stayed relatively focused on their center activities. Of course, I found things that I could have changed or tweaked to help the centers run more smoothly. When the math curriculum consists of a daily routine of introducing tons of new concepts and worksheets (with little time to do them), centers seem to be almost impossible, but really it wasn’t! Overall, it was really cool to watch students have fun while learning math. It was a refreshing change for them and also for myself! There are so, so many rich centers that could be provided daily in the math classroom, but I think that the concept is so different for many teachers who don’t even run centers in language arts, let alone in math. My CT told me at the beginning of my observations that it was a shame that I wouldn’t get to experience small group instruction and centers because I was teaching math. I remember thinking, “Why can’t I?” I’m glad that I decided to give it a shot because it was a great learning experience.