Artifacts and Characteristics of the Novice Teacher #8

We believe that the novice teacher should be a reflective practitioner! The artifact I chose to represent this characteristic is the write up for my mathematics task and discussion from Math Methods last semester. The base of this assignment was to plan and execute a math discussion with my class. I had a group of third graders at the time and the task I decided to have the students partake in was unlikely and likely events. I put the students into groups of three where they were instructed to color a blank spinner with at least two different colors and predict which color they would spin more often and test their predictions. Afterwards, we had a class discussion about the how results compared, or contrasted, to their predictions. My write-up consisted of my plan for action as well as my reflections on the task and discussion. I talked a lot about how the reactions I had anticipated were different from the students actual reactions. I reflected on what I thought the students learned as well as what I thought they still needed some help with. I also reflected on what I learned about student mathematical thinking from doing this activity. I had to think carefully about what I did to elicit thinking from the students and what approach I would take next. There were a lot of factors I was forced to consider when planning and implementing this task, and the write up helped me reflect upon and assess what I learned from it.