Math Interview Reflections

After listening to the many groups talk about their interviews I have concluded that the most useful and interesting questions were the ones regarding teacher strategies and classroom management. All those questions asking students their feelings about math and such resulted in what I expected. Among students, not much has changed. Well, I am only 5 years removed from high school and that’s not a lot of time to result in large changes. Every school still has a wide range of students with various competencies in math which usually reflects how they grade their teachers. Also, most students don’t know what the purpose of math is other than a requirement for getting by high school or needed for doing taxes. If that was true though, math could be seen as useless since there are computer programs to do our taxes for us now a days. The applications and purposes of math must be better explained to the students during the lessons.

Before I talk about what I found interesting from some of the other groups I’ll go in detail about the responses I got from our own groups interview. The person we interview is a new teacher who just went through the UBC education program last year. He studied math and physics and got a full time job right after graduation at a fairly new school in Surrey.

The first question we asked was about his transition from the practicum to the full time job. He explained how the full time job is a lot more work. Lesson prepping is the most time consuming component of teaching and all of that has to be completed outside of the classroom. I didn’t expect the degree and quantity of work that he made it out to be. The number of different courses he has to teach his first year is amazing, and for all of them, new lesson plans. I didn’t ask, but hopefully he gets lots of help from his fellow educators.

The second question asked about the amount of time the class is devoted to lecture and how much towards seat work. He responded with 20-40 minutes of seat work depending on the lesson. He reinforced the notion that it is very important to vary the class with activities such as math bingo. Many students can’t last the full 75 minutes that a class goes for and need to get up and move around. This is similar to one of the other groups interviews. One teacher said they like to start with a bus driver game, move on to a challenge question, lecture for 25 minutes and end with some time for work. Variety seems to be a common trend among math teachers these days and I think it is a good thing. Another thing was peer tutoring. I like the idea of peer tutoring because lots of times students have different perspectives and methods on how to approach a problem which can be extremely useful. Also, it may be easier for some kids to ask for help from a peer than a teacher. In my old school one of my math teachers was trying to set up a peer tutor system where the tutors would get paid 10 dollars per hour from the school. I believe it got going after the year I graduated.

The third question asked about any visual methods he used in class. To him, algebra tiles are stupid and I’m going to have to agree with him. It depends on the subject. Subjects such as geometry and surface area where kids can physically measure objects are visual methods really useful. Consistencies of notation was the fourth question. His advice, follow the notation in the textbook. Students get lost easily with simple changes such as f(x) = g(x).

The final question asked about special needs students and the alternative teaching strategies used when working with them. As a new teacher he says it is extremely difficult. Be patient and offer time outside of class. Also, use peer tutors!

Keeping students interested is a must as a teacher. I liked one of the responses from one of the other groups. To keep the top students interested, give them challenging problems and have them act as tutors. As for the struggling students, as long as they don’t give up, you’re doing a good job. Keep giving them encouragements as much as possible.

From these interview sessions I have learned a lot of useful information which I should be able to use in my own teaching practices. To end this blog I will mention the secret final question of the interview: What is your favourite pie?

If you answered 3.14… you are on the right track.