Friday, March 12, 2010

Final Evaluation

Today was my final evaluation for student teaching, by the head. We were meant to do dividing fractions, which I quite enjoy but can be difficult to teach at times. But I planned my lesson out with the help of a textbook from methods, and was feeling pretty confident with it. I got to class early, wrote my examples on the board, showed Miss Hodgson my lesson plan, and the girls started to trickle in. We started with a story problem: My mum told me I had 1 1/2 hours to wash the dog, clean my room, and take out the trash, how long did I have to perform each task? We figured it out by changing 1 1/2 to an improper fraction, the focus of our lesson yesterday, which is 3/2. then I asked how many 1/2 in 3/2? The obvious answer was 3. They all seemed to understand, so I moved on to the next example: I have 2 1/2 grams of Easter sweets, and I want to put them into 1/4 gram bags, how many bags do I need? So, we thought about it logically. How many quarters are in 2? 8. And how many quarters in a half? 2. So, 8+2=10, I will need 10 bags. Great, on a roll. So, then I introduce the procedure, which is where things get a little tricky. You change 2 1/2 to an improper fraction, 5/2, and then find the reciprocal of 1/4, which is 4/1 and then multiply the two fractions together (5/2 x 4/1 = 20/2 = 10/1 = 10). Then they asked WHY does that work?!? In response, I said, there are 4 quarters in a whole so 2 times 4, and then how many quarters in a half? What i should have said was what is half of 4. But that is beside the point now. Most of them understood. We then completed two more examples as a class. They began working on the class exercise. Obviously, there were questions and girls wanted confirmation that they were doing it correctly, and mind you I am in the room alone, and Miss Hodgson is sitting in the back; I don't have Mrs. Scott in there to help me answer questions. One girl cried, one girl came in late but caught on quickly, and a few forgot to find the reciprocal, but in the end it went really really well. And when Miss Hodgson left the room, I received a STANDING OVATION!!! It was one of the best feelings in the world. A few of them said, "Wow, you could be a real teacher!" I was on cloud 9! I feel really good about my lesson and observation, so we will wait to hear what Miss Hodgson says about it later on today in our meeting.

1 comment:

  1. Hopefully, some day you could be a REAL teacher!!! LOL

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