Guided Lead Teaching Plan Project

Michigan State University

TE 801: Professional Roles and Mathematics Teaching Practice: Fall 2014
By Kendra Asher

Section 7: Letter to Your Future Self

What have you learned from this experience that you would like to remember when you
start teaching next year?

Kendra Asher
TE 801 sec 4 Project 2 Section 7
After teaching my first math unit during GLT to fifth graders, I have learned an
immeasurable amount. I learned to be flexible. This one of the most important things I learned. I
talked to my MT and was planning to teach at the start of GLT but that didnt happen. My MT
was worried she wouldnt get through her material of triple digit multiplication. So we decided to
have me start the second week of GLT. As we got closer she realized that she was not where she
wanted to be but that she couldnt keep me from teaching any longer. But then our school was
piloting a new assessment program to be taken online and with paper and pencil. Problem was, it
was over a week late being ready. So I lost more time from this as my MT didnt want me to
teach things that would be covered on the test and then she wouldnt get credit for teaching it.
Honestly, I respect that she wanted to get credit but my first lessons were not new content but to
see what the students knew already. Anyhow, eventually we got the tests and started when she
realized that we couldnt keep waiting. Here you would think that I was about to go fill throttle
but no. We had Election Day off, my MT was being observed, we had three field trips in two
weeks, and Insights Wednesdays threw me off. Originally I had planned not to teach on
Wednesdays because we loose seven students to the gifted and talented program but I couldnt
keep pushing my lessons back. I also took into consideration that only one of the Insights
students needed help in math so I made the choice to teach on Wednesdays when they were
gone. There were days when I couldnt teach because of activities such as computers and
afternoon switches that included gym, engineering, or mathrrama. As a result of all these
events I learned to be flexible as a teacher. You are not going to be able to teach when you want
to all the time.

I also learned that when I have my own classroom I want a dedicated time to do each
subject. I ended up teaching math right after lunch. It was great because students knew what was
coming next. My MT didnt always keep the same schedule every day. She chose what to do
next based on necessity and time she had to do it. If I had a dedicated time every day to do math,
I think I would have gotten through my material faster. I also saw that when students do not have
routine and a set schedule, their behavior is affected. Due to all the missed days and field trips
my students hadnt had a simple week. They got out of their rhythm. Then when I was substitute
teaching on a Friday and attempting to teach a math lesson, their behavior was so disrespectful I
had to end my lesson. I kept referring to their behavior expectations on the CHAMPS poster but
was not able to get them to stop talking when I was teaching. This taught me how important
routine is to students.
I changed only one of my lessons from what I had planned. One of my first lessons was
teaching compatible numbers to the students. This was going to be a mechanism for my students
to check their answers. I had seen in their multiplication that their answers were sometimes not
reasonable, so I thought this would be a good strategy to teach. It didnt go well at all. My high
level students got frustrated because they didnt understand and took over the classroom with
their behavior. I was not able to teach because they kept blurting out. Eventually everyone got
frustrated and didnt want to try. I think part of the issue was my teaching because I could have
talked about rounding and I didnt. I think another part of the problem was that my students
couldnt round. I learned this after my MT gave them morning work on rounding. We discovered
that 75% of the students were not capable of rounding. Thus my second lesson that was to
address compatible numbers was changed to work on rounding.

As my lessons progressed I made more attempts to use the Math Talk Moves I learned in
TE 801. These Moves are wait time, turn and talk, revoicing, say more, who can repeat, asking
why they thought that, asking if they agree or disagree, or if they can add on. I used the Move of
asking a student to repeat what another student had to say and I liked it. It encourages all
students to pay attention, is a way to make sure that everyone heard what was said, and
encourages students to think about what each other are saying. I started to use this in more
subject areas including literacy. I also tried using a pair share or turn and talk. I had been very
hesitant to use this because my MT never uses a technique like this and I have struggled to get
their attention back. I was very much surprised when I used it when my Field Instructor was
observing me. I told students to share their two digit divisor division answer with their neighbor.
I then asked them to them share how they got their answer and to help their neighbor out. I was
shocked with how well it went. My three special education students got helped from their
neighbors. Justin was able to do simple division such as 36 2 and Mildred wrote down the
saying we used to remember the steps for him. Ramon got help from this neighbor too and said
that he now understood better. It was rewarding to see how this simple move helped them so
much. In my future teaching I want to use this moves more often as I have seen how they make
my lesson better.
After using assessments and the independent problems my students completed, I realized
that some of my students were far beyond skill wise what I was teaching. This led me to
differentiate for them. I gave them the Challenge tasks or Problem Solving worksheets to do
instead of or with the homework everyone else did. I was glad when I gave them a sheet called
Digit Discovery that I finally challenged them. They had to determine the missing numbers in a
long division problem solution. While I was ecstatic to see them challenged, I also realized the

difficulty differentiation can pose. I had to keep track of multiple different homework
assignments and determine who got what. I hope that with more experience and practice I will
become better at meeting everyones learning needs.
In conclusion, my math GLT was one of most beneficial learning experiences I have had.
I learned so much about what I want my future classroom to look like, how I want to teach, to
always be flexible and to investigate why a lesson did not go well. I know that when I have my
own classroom I will use what I learned to be a more effective teacher and improve my lessons.