First Impressions; Brain-Lock

Today marks the second full day of regular classes at LHS. Ms. Cranford and I have now had a chance to meet all of our students and observe their conduct during a lesson. I think we lucked out with this bunch. Every last one came to our room classbroken. They brought books and writing utensils; they settled down when the tardy bell rang; they listened quietly and took notes when Ms. Cranford explained and demonstrated the day's lesson. (Today we reviewed the graphing of linear equations.) At one point during the lecture, she asked a question and received a response from over half of the class. The noise level increased when the students were turned loose to work on their homework assignment in class, but almost all of the chatter centered on the task at hand. Needless to say, I was impressed. The nature of our schedule may play a role: we aren't teaching any courses below Algebra Plus in the mathematics progression. Ms. Cranford also has a reputation for being a friendly but no-nonsense type of teacher.

I will be teaching my first lesson next Tuesday, after Labor Day. In the meantime, I have been trying to make myself useful where I can. This includes assisting students that get hung up on the assigned exercises. I think I've spent too much time out of tutoring practice this summer -- my initial interventions have not gone as smoothly as usual. One episode in particular deserves a moment of reflection.

A couple of students had trouble evaluating an expression involving fractions. Upon learning of their difficulty, I thought to myself something along the following lines: Aw HELL no. These kids NEED to know how to work with fractions. Time for a crash-course refresher. Within the context of the exercise, I proceeded to demonstrate the methods for multiplying fractions and adding fractions with different denominators. My attempt did not take; the bell rang and they left unsure of their work. I told them we could go over it again later. When I related this episode to Ms. Cranford, she mentioned that she usually recommends multiplying by least common denominators whenever possible, thereby clearing the fractions and sidestepping the fraction gridlock altogether.

This approach would have been far more elegant, in hindsight. I've even used it with tutoring clients before for that very reason. Yes, the underlying discomfort these students have with fractions will have to be resolved eventually, but it will certainly be addressed in detail when they learn about rational expressions in future algebra lessons. Somehow I let myself get fixated on addressing the issue right then and there, to the detriment of solving the problem at hand. That bothers me. I'm not sure why I got hung up like that; none of the post hoc explanations I've run through my head seem to get at the root of the problem. Maybe I'm just overthinking my response to the situation; hindsight is the only 20/20 vision I've enjoyed since childhood. Still, I should strive to approach students' questions with a greater degree of flexibility. I'm sure I'll get a better feel for this kind of thing with practice -- and that's what this year is all about.

Remember what I said about posting new stuff on Fridays? Scrap that. From here on out, I blog whenever I feel the need to debrief myself after something interesting happens. And I find a lot of things interesting, so check back here often. On tomorrow or Friday I'll present an idea about how to link all of the EOU student-teaching blogs together along with a case for the benefits of doing so.