Introduction Through my time at Missouri Southern State University, I have been preparing to be an elementary school teacher. I have been taught how to manage a classroom, lead guided reading groups, prepare lessons, and write objectives. Most of the methods classes focus around literacy and language arts. My future students will be required to take an end of the year assessment called the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) test. The MAP test’s main focus is on language arts and mathematics, but at Missouri Southern there is one mathematics methods class in comparison to the three language arts methods classes. As a life-long learner, I am curious of better and more effective ways to teach my students mathematics since I am not as …show more content…
Next, I observed for thirty-two hours solely in a fourth grade classroom. The mathematics time I observed in this class was spent working on problems out of a mathematics textbook. The students moved problem-by-problem and page-by-page through this textbook. Since this technique requires little to no critical thinking, it is not likely that they will recall how to solve the problems. Lastly, I spent thirty-two hours observing two sixth grade mathematics classes. The first class was students, who were performing at grade-level, and the other class was students who were performing below grade level, however both classes used the same teaching techniques. The teacher lectured, the students took notes, and then the students completed an electronic worksheet. The students then had to write their answers down on a physical piece of paper to turn in for their grade. The students were wasting time by having to copy down answers instead of learning more about mathematics. Students are not retaining what they have been taught because of the low level of critical thinking currently being used in schools. The lack of mathematical retention can be seen in the state of Missouri’s MAP test scores, and I chose to focus on fourth grade because of the low performance that is seen in the test. The state of Missouri’s schools are assessed using the MAP test. This assessment shows students’ mastery of the Missouri Learning Standards (Assessment, 2016). Each year all of
Lack of comprehension and poor course work will result in a lower grade average. Students may become frustrated and give up easily.
Day-in and day-out college athletes sacrifice their study time and social life just to contribute to the athletic programs they are a part of. The schools offer benefits to their athletes in forms of scholarships and academic help (tutors), but those are only at a small expense compared to the revenue big D1 programs earn during the course of their basketball and football seasons. Lawyers and sports analysts seek to provide a way in which the massive sport’s income can be trickled down to the most deserving of athletes. William W. Berry III’s “Amending Amateurism: Saving Intercollegiate Athletics Through Conference-Athlete Revenue Sharing” written for the Alabama Law Review, and Taylor Branch’s “The Shame of College Sports” issued by The
The new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics bring a new opportunity to the classrooms of the United States that many people view as a controversial. According to the NCTM (2013) “The Common Core State Standards offer a foundation for the development of more rigorous, focused, and coherent mathematics curricula, instruction, and assessments that promote conceptual understanding and reasoning as well as skill fluency” (par. 1). While some people believe that the Common Core State Standards may hinder progress in the classroom for many reasons including too much government control, teaching to the test, an excessive focus on language arts and math, and wasted resources, others agree with the NCTM statement about that claims the standards help increase conceptual understanding, reasoning, and skill fluency.
\item The teachers always want their lessons to be interesting and they introduce the real life problem before they can go deep into the content of the subject.
Mississippi State University was founded in the 1870’s as a land-grant college. Today, the university is comprised of eight different colleges that offer over 160 degrees. These include many master and doctoral degree programs. Some of the most popular programs include nursing, business, counseling and psychology. Over 70 percent of students are Mississippi residents. Every year, over 20,000 students attend the university. The six-year graduation rate is around 60 percent and the annual retention rate is around 80 percent. The Shackouls Honors College helps over 1,300 academically impressive students take small, exclusive classes. There are around 1,200 faculty members and a total of 4,300 staff. The student to faculty ratio is 20 to one. The main campus has over 730 buildings spread over 4,200 acres. The main campus library boasts over two million volumes. Alumni include Josh Grisham, popular writer of thriller novels, William Faulkner, Nobel laureate author, and James Meredith, who was a leader in the American civil rights movement.
“In 1995, Minnesota fourth graders placed below average for the United States on an international math test” (Ripley, 2013, p. 73). Two years after, Minnesota used international benchmarks to create and update their math standards. In 2007, students from Minnesota were performing as well as students in Japan. One major contributor of the math success story of Minnesota is they made their education system stronger by creating a set of clear and targeted standards. This allowed all students to learn the same content, there was less math objectives so teachers could spend enough time teaching one concept, and teachers only had to follow one set of standards opposed to state and local
The Missouri Common Core State Mathematic Standards K-2 assist with planning and assessment in a variety of ways. These standards are designed to support child with real-world problems. So, we take these standards and we can then plan to support the purpose of the standards. These standards focus on counting, operations, base ten operations, measurement, the number system, functions, statistics and much more. Teachers who teach kindergarten, first, or second grade can use these
The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics are a standards-based curriculum that guide instructional planning. Professionals have worked to provide evidence-based standards that are clear, understandable, and consistent. Further, they consist of rigorous content with an emphasis on higher-order thinking skills, as well as an underlying
The five colleges I researched were; Culver Stockton, Rensselaer, Mizzou, Missouri Southern, and Pittsburg State. I chose is Missouri Southern over the other four choices because it is less expensive than them, it is closer to home and it has a wide variety of activities throughout the year.
Kansas has many state parks and the popular place is the monument rocks and the castle rocks. The monument rocks and the castle rocks have fossils in ancient chalks in plain western Kansas which is a spectacular landmark. The chalk was deposited during the Cretaceous period of geological history about 80 million years ago, when the central interior was covered by sea. The fossils were like shark teeth, fish bones, even dinosaur bones, and other sea creatures. The fossils in the chalk bed go to the Sternberg Museum in Hays.Michael J. Everhart is a shark hunter and he found a shark skull which was under sand and gravel The chalk was a good material for trapping and preserving
For the majority of these classes, I must rely on my own assessments to measure my effectiveness. Using the TI-Navigator system, I formatively assess students by sending questions to solve throughout the period. I then determine whether to address the entire class or to work one on one with a student. Often students mimic the mathematical process, but have little understanding of “why” so I assign writing journals to encourage mathematical thinking. Reading the journal provides me insight into the student’s understanding, their decision making, and any misconceptions they may have to guide my future lessons. Within my classroom, I integrate a variety of hands-on activities that expand my students’ understanding of mathematics: dressing as a zombie to model exponential growth, performing “Function Aerobics” to move as the graphs shift, and measuring football lights outside using trigonometry. I always seek innovative ways to teach mathematics that is relevant to my students’
Critical thinking is damaged because students are only being taught how to pass the test at the end. Occasionally students need to know facts that might be important later in their life that might not be on a
Low battery. Exactly the two words I didn’t want to see right now. While on our annual trip to Kansas we are in Brian's truck heading out to the corn fields to shoot our limits of geese and ducks. Waiting for this trip every year is like going through pregnancy. You wait 9 months for it and when it finally comes your whole life changes.
I gathered and analyzed the MAP results for students who took Math, Reading, Science tests in grades k-9 in order to identify percentage of Students who met or exceeded their projected RIT (Rasch Unit) in 2016-2017 school year. I also analyzed the results by classroom, subject, and teacher. I used the MAP winter 2016 results, I prepared a projected proficiency summary report for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia (SBAC) and ACT tests in spring 2017. Currently, I am helping the admin team to develop a plan for low performing teachers and students in order to increase student achievement in the area of concern.
Current nationwide examination outcomes offer continuing paperwork of the should enhance the concentrate on enhancing student accomplishment in mathematics. The National Evaluation of Educational Development (NAEP) just recently launched the 2005 mathematics ratings which mirrored student accomplishment in the locations of dimension, geometry, information analysis, likelihood and algebra. Country wide, just 30 % of 8th graders were considered competent. Although mirroring a boost from previous evaluations, just 69 % of the 8th graders country wide showed a standard abilities level on the NAEP evaluation (Olson, 2005).