Although Cooperative Learning during a pandemic is difficult I was able to do carry out some cooperative learning lessons in my two Student Teaching placements. Specifically, in my second Student Teaching placement in Springville I taught a cooperative learning lesson on key terms of circles. Students had already learned this material and this lesson was a review lesson on the key terms of circles. For this lesson I had the students work in groups and answer questions together. Students worked together to find the key terms of a circle and then had to piece together a puzzle that had pieces of information about the circles on them. This lesson demonstrates my understanding of different learners' needs because students are working to answer questions but then also being able to see and interact with those answers and piece them together. This helps students see how the key terms of the lesson fit together and how important it is to see the pattern. It also accounts for different strategies for students' learning styles and how students can see the material in a variety of ways.
During EDUC 499 and my student teaching placements I was required to complete task 3 of the edtpa. Through this I was required to give my students an assessment during my learning segment and be able to respond with feedback and take data collected from the assessment to determine my next steps of teaching for the students. The assessment I chose was an exit ticket that students were to work on at the end of the lesson and turn back into me. This more informal assessment allowed me to monitor learner progress because the students completed the exit ticket right after the lesson so it showed how well the students initially understood the lesson. This shows my decision making because I was required to look at my data chart and see what I wanted my next steps to be with the students.
During my second student teaching placement in Springville Middle School I was challenged to show material in a new light through my Math Labs. In Springville students have a regular math class where they are taught the material and also have a math lab where teachers go over various topics and help students to practice their mathematical skills. My teacher had 3 Math Labs built into her schedule per day and it was my responsibility to plan them. This meant that I had to see what topics the students were learning about that week and connect those concepts to an activity that would allow students to practice these skills they have learned. These Math Labs gave me many opportunities to connect concepts and try out new and varying perspectives that the students would not have seen in a regular math classroom. I shared one example of a lesson I taught in lab having to do with graphing a line given a table of values. In this lesson I had the students practice this topic using real world application through vacation planning because it was around spring break. Throughout my placement I was able to relate the math they were learning into more real life scenarios so they could see how math is used to solve real world problems.
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