First Week of Teaching = Done

Yesterday... I taught 2nd year again (this time arc length and perimeter of sectors), but it did not go nearly as well as Monday's lesson went.  The students kept telling me they didn't understand and they were talking too much.  I think they understood much better than they thought they did, but they were just being lazy.  Therefore, I reflected on how I could change my next lesson to make it better.  Today I taught area of sectors and it went much much better with my new improvements.  I did several things: I tried harder to explain the lesson in more depth, I "threatened" the students that I would give them homework if they weren't working hard, and I gave them a mental maths test at the end of the period.  Giving them something to do and a reason to work hard really seemed to work well with this class.

This afternoon I also taught one of my 1st year classes.  I had arranged a lesson on ratio and proportions, but when asking my teacher what I would be teaching next week, I realized I had planned the wrong lesson!  I had a planning period right after that, so I planned the lesson for the afternoon.  It was on notation of ratios, so it was not much different than what I was going to do.  The lesson went well - so well that they finished the exercise in about 10-15 minutes.  Since I still had over 20 minutes of class remaining I decided to teach the next lesson as well (especially since some students already moved on to it).  The students picked up on it quickly and some of them finished all of that exercise as well.  What a bright group I have!  I hope when I teach this to my other 1st year class next week they do just as well.

So overall, today was a good teaching experience.  I learned how to deal with a talkative class while also explaining at their level, and I also learned how to adapt my lessons quickly.

No more teaching for the week because of a math competition throughout Scotland...

Mission for the rest of the week: find a job!

Funny thing a student said to me yesterday:  "Are you from America?" yes "Are you from Canada?" no... "Isn't Canada in America?" "I thought it was warm in Canada." ......someone needs a geography lesson!