Engaged Learning

This week was a little out of the ordinary for my service learning again. I will be helping the entire math department at Lakeridge with a big student project next week that I've been told involves filling in hundreds of bubble sheets. I'm excited to help those teachers out with the busywork, but in the meantime I cut back on my hours there since I will be spending so much time next week.

That being said, I will have to go off previous week's experiences. 

I have exclusively been volunteering with math teachers for my service learning. When one teacher doesn't have anything for me to do, they offer me up to the rest of their department. This wasn't exactly planned, It was just who was willing to have me. Math, in my opinions, is a very hard subject to use engaged learning in. Especially at the higher levels. In fact, the teachers I have been working with told me that "Engaging students in math" is their district focus this school year. In texts shared with one teacher, she said "Honestly, engagement is the hardest thing when they don't want to be here."

They do try, however. 

One teacher I've been sitting on seems to be a very big proponent for "active" learning. She often has the kids up and out of their seats. Most notably, she is the teacher that has kids come up to do problems up on the whiteboard. I didn't realize it at the time, but getting in and out of their seats, and even just the act of standing helps them be engaged and focused on the content.

Other teachers tend to try to be more...fun. One of my favorite things another teacher does is play a game called Around the World. He has his students push their desks into a circle and then he has this little squishy ball toy painted to look like the planet earth. He gives the ball and a math problem to one student. The student passes that ball and has to finish the problem before the ball gets around the room back to them. Going into that, I thought it would be stressful, especially for students who don't like being put on the spot. But the students seem to have nothing but fun with it. When he announces that its an Around the World day they all cheer. It's definitely a game I've added to my bag of tricks.

A third example I'd like to highlight is from that same Around the World teacher. I've sat in his class a couple times now and one interesting thing he does that we even talked about in course learning is showing how his teaching can apply to a real world scenario. For instance, his class is learning about inequalities right now and one class he took them all down to the cafeteria after lunch and showed how the lunchroom manager uses inequality-based calculations to order inventory. I am in my twenties and I didn't even know that stock could be managed like that.

I'm hoping in the future, as a science teacher, that I will be able to effectively engage my students. But I am glad I happen to have gotten to sit with math teachers. I think seeing their struggles has been very eye opening.