Curriculum, Curriculum...Everywhere!

Part 1 – Observation

Examine the instructional materials used over the course of week.

Date	Materials w/ Descriptions	Teacher interaction	Student interaction
Monday, Dec 2	1.  Making Sense of Graphs a.        “Showdown” flashcards that were in each groups’ boxes on their tables. 2. Worksheet over slope, calculating slope and making a table of values.	1.  Placed the cards in each groups’ box. While students completed these questions, the teachers monitored their progress and guided them where there was confusion.   2.  Assigned by teacher for homework.	1. Students worked in groups of three or four to complete these ten questions, asking questions as they went.       2. Taken by students to finish for homework and hand in the next day.
Tuesday, Dec 3	1.    Major Cumulative Test questions in the form of Showdown with individual cards. 2.    Worksheet covering table of points, domain, range, slope, rate of change and the different linear forms	1.    Handed out an envelope of Showdown cards to each student. Previously during plan period we mixed two different Showdowns together: Writing Linear Equations & Graphing Linear Equations   2.    Passed out to students to complete for homework as a review for upcoming test	1.    Received the Showdown cards and began to work individually then in groups, in the style of cooperative learning, to learn from peers over the topic of Linear Functions     2.    Complete for homework as a review for upcoming quiz
Wednesday, Dec 4	1. Guided notes sheet for the students’ introduction to Probability   2.  PowerPoint WTQ?! Introducing Probability       3.  Worksheet over Probability	1. Handed out guided noted sheet and then walked the students through the process to fill it out. 2. Had a call and response for the students to get the next question     3. Handed out worksheet for students to work on over the evening and hand in the next day.	1.  Received the noted sheet and filled it out with the teacher   2.  Had white boards and worked out the problems after doing the response to receive their next question 3.  Received their worksheet and will complete it over the next day or so
Thursday, Dec 5	1. Questions were posted on the document camera to help review for the Cummulative Test. Questions were based on what the students were struggling with.   2.  Cumulative Review Worksheet	1. Created the questions during the activity for students to work on.         2. Passed out by teacher for homework	1.  Students worked independently on the problem that was posted. If they were stuck or had no clue they were allowed to ask their teammates.     2.  Completed by students that evening and handed in the next day
Friday, Dec 6	1.  Cumulative Test	1. Passed out tests at the beginning of the period, went over some directions clarification	1.  Received tests and worked on them independently

Part 2 – Analysis

                For all the homework it seemed that it was all memorization. There were no exploratory pieces to the homework. So this would be categorized as a lower level. For the Showdown cards I think it could be categorized as Procedures without connections because the questions that were covered on the flashcards were clearly stated and just demanded an answer. There really wasn’t any deeper thinking involved in this. These are not connected to the concepts or meanings that underlie the procedure that is being demanded of the students. It never seemed as though the kids were doing mathematics. They were always just asked to provide an answer instead of explaining their reasoning behind it as well.

Part 3 – Interview

 

                Miss Liibbe feels as though she has no control over the curriculum. However, she does not feel like this is an injustice. She explained the committee of teachers that outlines this curriculum and the great job they do. They have rewritten and scaled down what they want the kids to know. They are more focused on quality instead of quantity. The main thing is that they have moved from an objective-based curriculum to covering and knowing the Big Ideas of the sections.

                Miss Liibbe creates a lot of the material she uses since she does cooperative learning. It is a joint effort between her, a teacher that teaches the same subject and through DocuShare which is a sharing website that allows teachers to share materials. That is where she gets her tests as well.
                When Liibbe plans she starts with looking at the test. So that is how she looks at how she teaches the lessons and try to find comparable problems to the tests. So she uses questions that help her teach the kids what will be on the test. She does not use the text for her teaching material. She might have a long time ago, but now she uses her own material.
                She uses integers chips and algebra tiles for factoring and such. They use a lot of number lines and things that they draw. She uses the chips because it is a good tie in to the concept. This helps the kids learn the concepts much better.

Part 4 – Reflection

                There are several things that are great about Miss Liibbe’s teaching and curriculum use. I love the cooperative learning style and the fact that she creates many of her own worksheets and activities. However, I do not like that she starts with the test and teaches the students to the test. I think that I will use the objectives and big ideas of the chapter and teach the kids to that. Obviously the test will be testing if they have learned these things. So giving them problems that can help them learn better and deeper knowledge I think is better. So I would try to find better activities that produce some higher cognitive load.