Many Points

As a learner, learning in and of itself gave me joy.  I admit, I do not understand how it could not!  But, I do understand that, at least for the majority of the students that I see each year, it does not. Well, not at least the learning in the way it comes from the curriculum. SmartBoard presentations, Power Points or Slide presentations, even with bells and whistles, is just the same old same old, with noise. I know that challenge works, my students tell me.  But not the challenge of another long math problem out of context.  In some ways, my students are very savvy.  They want to know why, like we all do, and they want to SEE it, in action, in some real world application where they can work together to come up with an answer. And yes, they would LOVE for me to do the work, at the beginning. I taught a group of students how to juggle this year.  Some did not quite get it, and could only toss and catch two scarves.  Marvelous!  They did not know they could do that before the

I started this year with an idea, an idea that learning was going to be fun.  Even bigger, learning MATH was going to be fun.  We built towers and houses, even a website and a game.  Students asked questions, worked together, shared ideas, laughed, and learned math.  We used math vocabulary to describe what we were doing, and my students had fun.  It was first semester. Second semester came, and with it, major changes.  I had to let go of some content and embrace a different paradigm for DAEP school.  I now supervise independent learning for some students, while teaching others.  I may have less content, but I have more record keeping (have I mentioned that I am not very good at record keeping?)  My days seem longer and I have noticed that I have fallen into the trap of "direct teaching" for an entire class period.  This new group of students gives an appearance of not wanting to fall behind, but grades for the previous semester suggest many already have.  I have caved (for