Week 6 Prompt
Think about the discourse occurring in the classes that you are teaching. (One way to think about discourse is the dialogue that occurs in the classroom.) In particular, think about the questions that you are asking students and about their responses.
On Friday I started a new chapter. This new chapter is over Transformations, which is almost completely different from our previous chapter on Trigonometry. The first lesson I taught was over Translations and how to carry them out on a coordinate plane. A question I asked during each of the three classes I taught this lesson was “How can you apply a translation in a real life situation?”
This question allowed me to see if my students understand what a translation is. A student used an example of a teacher moving where two students sit in the room. The teacher wants to keep them together so he must move them the same number of desks. This response really surprised me because I did not think about using the desks as a coordinate plane. I thought this was a great way to apply a translation to a real life situation, so I used it as an example in my last class as well.
A majority of my questions are to assess my students’ understanding of the concepts and topics I just taught. I use the questions to see if I am moving to fast through new material, need to go back and clear up misconceptions, or have students apply the new knowledge in a different and more challenging way.
I have realized how hard it is to get students to give you feedback, so whenever I do get a student to share their opinion or ask a question I try to thank them. I am hoping that this will give other students more confidence when asking or answering a question. Student responses are typically not very in depth and are mostly asking for clarification. When they answer my questions, they can sometimes surprise me at how fast they grasped the new knowledge or the level of understanding they are at.
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