C3. The teacher uses data from his/her own classroom teaching to evaluate his/her own strengths and areas for improvement.
This aspect of the morning routine includes a spinner and cubes. After the week has completed, children will add up the total from the previous days and compare it to other week’s totals.
Being that I partook in a virtual student teaching experience, there were several areas that I continuously reflected on. Due to the fact that teaching and learning virtually is a mostly new experience, this aspect of education was critical.
More specifically, an area that I consistently reflected on was the morning routine, which strongly incorporated mathematical elements. At the beginning of my field experience, finding ways to switch my instruction from in-person strategies, to virtual strategies required a lot of attention. For example, after analyzing ways to make the morning routine more successful, it was given interactive elements and placed onto Google Slides. This has helped my students learn to the fullest of their potentials because they are completing the same content as before; however, their work is more accessible. Furthermore, the lesson was easier to present and share with my learners, being that I was not physically present inside their classroom.
The above image is an example of the calendar, which includes geometric shapes. Further slides can be found in the attached PDF version.
Reflection is a critical aspect of teaching that should never go overlooked. I strongly feel that the best educators are those who put their student’s needs first. This includes analyzing my own teaching for areas that can be further developed to best support the needs of my learners. I will continue to monitor my teaching in order to finds new ways to best engage my students and incorporate their involvement throughout my lessons. In order to have the most successful classroom, this aspect will never go unnoticed.
My students complete this observation sheet after the calendar each morning. It includes mathematical terms and focuses on geometry.
A lesson plan to the morning routine can be found here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ItnGVFh5s2OYzbpGw-ADbStCpQsgKfDgzc167qTDqns/edit?usp=sharing.