Teaching is learning. There is no way around it. With every lesson I teach, I learn something about myself, something about my students, or something about the world around me. I would love to be a perfect teacher who always makes exactly the right decisions and always chooses the best way to teach every lesson to every child, but I never will be. Thank goodness I am given the opportunity to learn everyday! I won't ever be perfect, but I will be better than I was.
Math has provided me with countless moments of learning this year. Our district is looking for a new math series so we piloted one this year. Beginning a new series always has a few bumps in the road so, although things started rough, I tried to be optimistic and look for the good in the series. However, the further down the road we got, the more I hated teaching math. My students did not enjoy "math time," which, I'm sure, was a reflection of my excitement for it. In contrast, however, we did enjoy moments when math naturally integrated into what we were learning during other times of the day. We enjoyed surveying the class and making graphs. We enjoyed acting out word problems and greater than/less than situations. We enjoyed singing math songs and learning through music. It wasn't "math" that we hated, it was the way I was teaching math that wasn't working for us.
A few weeks ago I discovered the treasure chest of kindergarten teaching, #KinderChat. I had several conversations with kindergarten teachers who love teaching math (@tori1074, @ryflinn, @CaraSJohnson, @learningmurd, and others). We talked about fun and engaging ways to address the Common Core State Standards while promoting creative thinking and problem solving. These amazing teachers inspired me. More important than anything else, these conversations caused me to raise the bar on my teaching. I had to put the fun back into math in my classroom.
Using our pilot series as a resource, I have changed the structure of the lessons. Rather than having four worksheets to get through each day, our math time allows for inquiry and experimentation. We use our "Math Mouths" to talk about our learning. We now have math station time, mini-lessons, and small groups. Since we already had literacy stations in our routine, we needed to think of something different to call their math counterpart. The class offered up many great options and ultimately voted to call our math station time "Math Mania," which I think is perfect. Rather than dreading math everyday, my students come in looking forward to it and asking about it.
As we conclude the third quarter this week, I look back on this year and think, "Thank goodness I am given the opportunity to learn everyday! I'm not perfect, but I am better than I was. Tomorrow, I will be even better!"
That is a great story. Students want to learn but they want to be an active part of it. Your students are lucky to have a teacher with a growth mindset that reflects and changes o benefit them! Great job!
ReplyDeleteI am so thankful we were able to have such great conversations about Math. It was inspiring and rejuvenating! And I definitely agree that conversations like these cause us to raise the bar on our teaching. #Kinderchat is an awesome PLN!
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