My book of choice was “What should I do? Confronting Dilemmas of Teaching in Urban Schools” by A. E. Richert. This book was written for novice teachers who reached their first “professional crises” as well as experienced teachers who want to reflect on their profession. This book addresses several issues that both groups of teachers face every day in their professional lives. Stories and dilemmas presented in this book came from different parts of country this suggests that there are no geographical but rather social limitations on teachers’ dilemmas. In addition, I learned that the dilemma of professional identity is common for urban and rural teachers. My major takeaway from this book is the fact that effective teaching requires full support for our students and constant professional and personal development on the teacher’s part. This book also advocates for collaboration and share experiences among teachers. Conducting the focus group taught me that our students should be exposed to as many aspects and applications of mathematics as possible. Students have a hard time to coming up with ideas or topics in mathematics because their mathematical horizon is limited to abstract skills that they are expected to know. They do not see mathematics as a subject that is applicable in everyday life, except topics on money. Furthermore, I learned that some students believe that mathematics is very important for their secondary and post-secondary education because of grades and tests they need to take, but their hearts are not there. There is also a group of students who would like to open their mind to wide and deep learning of mathematics. Both groups seemed to be interested in my ImagineIT topic “Mathematical Wonders of the World”. While conferring with my colleagues I learned that they face professional and curriculum dilemmas on how to teach students to the standardized test while creating and implementing a curriculum that is responsive to our students’ lives and interests. My notion that all of us have limited time during the school year to incorporate projects and teach content topics was reinforced.
Looking forward...
I would like to build good relationships with my students and learn more about their personal interest. I hope that in the next couple of months we will come up with a great topic for a project that will grasp students’ attention and that will be aligned with curriculum. During the period in between this report and my final ImagineIT project I would like to create and use in my classroom interesting activities showing to my students that mathematics is truly everywhere and applies in so many different fields. In addition, I intend to spend time on researching historical and mathematical wonders of the world, like; Eratosthenes’ measurement of the Earth’s circumference, proves of the Pythagorean Theorem, Golden Ratio and Rectangle, etc.
