Class Visitation Reflection

Whether or not many of my colleagues believe it, I am a huge math nut. I grew up in a household of Calculus teachers who loved math and would often crack some of the cheesiest math jokes laughing themselves onto the floor. I would often pick up The History of Pi or The Number Devil just because it interested me. I also really loved  Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland, an odd world of geometric shapes and mathematical formulas. It was with great excitement that I learned that at my current school site there was a teacher who had successfully incorporated math and technology into his curriculum and was incredibly successful in doing so. His student's grades had begun skyrocketing and, the most fascinating factor, his students had failed the course twice before finally being placed in his class. All of a sudden, these students who could not even begin to comprehend Algebra 2 were excelling in math and passing tests with flying colors. I had to see what he was doing. I walked into the classroom, took a seat at the back of the class, and observed quietly. After sitting in on a whole class period, I decided to reflect on what I had seen take place in his classroom. Technology was integrated into the curriculum very uniquely. He used technology mainly during his lectures to teach students new concepts. The teacher had created a Reader. A Reader is a bound notebook created, published, paid for, and distributed by the teacher. The Reader was full of the teacher's Powerpoints and copies of his lecture presentations. He left certain areas blank to act as a complementary graphic organizer to his lectures. Students could take notes, copy examples, and solve sample problems all within this reader. He also made sure to provide students with enough space to show all of their work. A habit that he reiterated during every class, "Always show your work." This use of technology definitely fueled student learning. The lecture evolved from a stagnant teacher centered information dump to a student driven, interactive lecture. The teacher would have students come up to the smart board and solve the math problem. The teacher would then upload the student work directly to the class website so students could see how their peers solved the problem. The most unique aspect of this classroom was the teacher's ability to use a combination of his own lectures which were then complemented by student work. Later, he would upload everything to the class website. He would also record the students explaining how they came to that specific answer and play it in tandem with the student physically solving the problem. I learned that technology can be used not only as a lecture tool but also as an additional resource for students providing them an online resource where they can go to learn or re-learn the material. After the class, I approached the teacher and asked him how much time he spends catching up absent students on the material. He smiled, "Never." His students hop online and figure it out themselves. He also has a discussion forum that allows students to interact and discuss the problems together. I was so grateful to be able to sit-in on a such a unique math class and I was so happy to see the successful integration of technology and mathematics in a way that made math accessible to all students.