Reflection and Self Evaluation
As means for receiving feedback, at the end of students' summative assessments, they were asked to complete a few short questions in which they rated their own performance and gave me feedback on their favorite activities and what they felt I could have done better when teaching. Below are links to their responses.
Most Successful Learning Goal
Least Successful Learning Goal
I would say that my most successful learning goal was Learning Goal 3- Students will be able to construct and interpret scatter plots measuring bivariate data. While the success of all of the learning goals were comparable, this one is set apart from the rest because of the students' natural interest and question asking that went along with it. When discussing correlation, the students were interested in the relationships and were easily able to come up with examples of different types of correlation. I think that because I was able to connect this to their personal lives and bring in relevant examples that made sense to them, they had an easier time understanding the real world context of correlation. In addition, the construction and interpretation of scatter plots is related to, respectively, graphing ordered pairs and slope, which is something that the students were already familiar with. I also think that the presentation of the material and the shoe activity created a relevant and interesting learning experience that made sense to all of the students.
The least successful learning goal was Learning Goal 2- Students will be able to read, analyze, and interpret graphic representations of data in relation to their context. While the assessment results show that most students understood the material, there are still a few students who only partially met the goal and I believe that many students who met it still do not have an intuitive understanding of the way that box plots, histograms, and stem and leaf plots work. Because the lessons that covered this learning goal were meant to be more of a review, I think that I did not spend enough time covering how to read them and interpret them. More time was spent on creating box plots, but not necessarily what the quartiles mean. For histograms, students did not really seem to understand how they differ from bar graphs, and for stem and leaf plots, they did not really understand what the "stem" and "leaves" truly represented. Since our focus was on developing students bivariate interpretation skills, I did not dedicate enough time to these displays of data, even though they were concepts that the students were not familiar with. I also think that my explanations were rushed and were not explicit enough. I skipped some steps in my explanations because I thought that most students were following along.
From the feedback, I was pleased to see that students felt they had done well on the exam and that they had learned from my unit. As far as recommendations, students were all over the place. Some did not have any suggestions, while others disagreed on what I could have done better. It all came down to personal learning preference. Ultimately, regardless of what a teacher does, there will be some students who like it and some who do not, which is why differentiating is so critical. I was most surprised by what students had indicated as their favorite activity from the unit. While I found the shoe activity to be beneficial and engaging, I did not expect it to be anyone's favorite, yet many students indicated that they had liked it. I felt the same about the scatter plot presentations, and again many students said they had found it interesting to do research and see their peers' findings.
Professional Goals
Two important goals emerged from my unit which will help me in becoming a more effective educator. The first goal deals with my time management. I felt that during my unit I could have used my in-class time more effectively. Some days, students had extra time at the end of the class because I had not planned appropriately. In addition, I think that I should have included more fundamental math practice throughout the unit. Since we spent so much time on statistics, students had a long break in which they were not practicing basic arithmetic skills. In the future, I will aim to always have a backup plan in which students will be able to spend any left over time doing additional math practice. I will also aim to pick out the most important pieces to teach so that I can use my time more effectively.
My second goal deals with classroom management. There were instances throughout the unit in which I did not set clear expectations at the beginning of class. This resulted in moments where students were chatting too much and getting distracted. Classroom management has been one of my focuses throughout my student teaching experience. I think that it comes with time, but it will be a goal of mine to set clear expectations and stick to them. I can not let behaviors go too for before correcting them. I will also aim to use more preventative techniques such as seating charts or making groups for activities instead of doing it randomly.
These goals emerged at the end of my unit as I had time to reflect. One of my initial goals for my unit was to include plenty of hands-on activities. This ultimately helped with classroom management as students were frequently engaged in the material, but there were still several areas for improvement.
Reflection
I think ultimately, the unit was a success and students learned a tremendous amount, all while having fun. Students were engaged throughout and asked an abundance of questions. The assessment results show that students grew and developed several new understandings. I am so thankful that my mentor let me take complete control over the classes and trusted me to do my own thing. The unit was completely authentic and proved to be an effective design. If I could do it again, as mentioned above, I would incorporate more fundamental math practice, in addition to condensing the unit. Overall, I believe I was effective in my instruction and design of assessment and activities. The students indicated that they had fun and recognize that they know more about statistics.