Part II: Outline the transformation you would like to see in your teaching and your students' learning
The transformation I hope to see within my classroom is my student’s ability to write and express their thought process for solving problems, specifically quadratics and factoring. I want my students to demonstrate their understanding by applying it to different situations and thoroughly explaining their reasoning’s for their process.
Instead of just having them ‘show me’ the work, I would like them to be able to explain their thought process of ‘why’ they have taken that process. I want them to know ‘why’ they have chosen to do specific steps, or at least what their thoughts for going through the process they have chosen to solve the given quadratic problem. Instead of just having the students complete the problem, I will ask them a specific quadratic situation and have them solve it showing all their work and writing the process and reasoning behind each step. They will then need to have a ‘final’ writing of what the processes is were, why they chose to do those specific steps, and their understanding of how and why they chose their ‘path.’ The application will come when the students are asked to apply the knowledge of quadratics and factoring into the real-world situations and problems. This is where the assessments will be aimed, for the students to apply the knowledge in the writing, both formal and informal.
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Throughout this process, I will be focusing on explanation, interpretation, and application, three of the six facets of understanding. The students will need to be able to explain and justify their responses to the questions and the explanations of their process to which they solve the problems. They will need to justify their steps and the way they approached the problem. Within these questions, there is not necessarily one specific way I want them to solve the problems, the answer is not the important part. It is more important to me that they are able to interpret a complete idea of their thought process of what they think they would do to get to an answer, even if it is not necessarily the correct one. I need to see what they are and are not understanding throughout their interpretation.
Throughout the unit, we will have formal and informal writings, on a regular basis. It is important for the students to know what I am expecting from them and the more practice they have throughout the year, will only increase their ability to thoroughly express their ideas and understandings. Our informal writings will help myself and the students understand what they are struggling with and what we need to discuss further. These will be 1-2 questions asked daily and evaluated in different ways, such as peer-to-peer, teacher to student, and gallery, to find misconceptions and corrections and improvements to their writings with the set rubric.
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This will be done on paper and pencil, with evaluations using the Promethean board, sometimes the use of the iPads, all while referring back to the rubric at hand. As for the formal writings, this will be a more 'test-like' atmosphere that they will experience in their testing in the future and will be evaluated by me using the same rubric. In this case of writing, our technology will be used as more of a tool to complete the task and then help with the different types of evaluations/observations that we will use.