Reflection on Math Micro-teaching

Gigi, Min-Chee and I presented our group math micro-teaching lesson on graphing. It falls under the Math 9 Integrated Resource Package, Prescribed Learning Outcomes B2 (graph linear relations, analyze the graph, and interpolate or extrapolate to solve problems) and B3 (model and solve problems using linear equations of the form a/x = b, x≠0). Some of the positive areas in today's micro-lesson were that we had handouts for the students to use so that they could work through problems in groups of 2, the students successfully displayed their knowledge of graphing and assisted in teaching others, we utilized different types of graphs to introduce students to plotting data points and interpolate and extrapolate from the graph, and we went around the class during the activity and checked in with students that might have problems. The variety of problems, I believe, kept students engaged because the problems were practical and not just theoretically conjured up.

Some of the things which need improvement were our timing, our inability to keep control of explanation and discussion, the clarity of instructions in one of the problem sheets and our team-teaching ability. The timing was not good. The problems probably were not designed for 5 minutes of time to work. They required more time to answer and draw. Specifically, the "Plumbing Problem" had sub-questions that required thinking that would take a long time for a Math 9 student. With the student's presentation and explanation of his solution to the problem, it became very uncontrolled and the student was talking to the class and teaching them for a long period of time. Normally, student-teaching would be a good tool because students will have a better understanding of their fellow students' obstacles. This time, though, the student-teaching took up a large portion of time in our demo. I believe that I should have made the "Plumbing Problem" more explicit in the instructions. I saw a group graphing their points as a step-wise increase in cost. I should have stressed that the cost was gradually increasing from one hour to the next. The final point I have to make is that I spoke very little during the micro-lesson. Even though I did contribute to the preparation, I did not speak much during the micro-lesson and that was a bad move because I should have coordinated better with my team so that we could all give input.

Overall, I think this micro-teaching lesson gave me a lot to think about in terms of student participation and student understanding. I hope that I can come away from this, realizing how to get student involved and engaged so that they can come to appreciate math.