Reply To: My First Course

[David Mace]

Honestly, I’m a little frustrated. I’m a third-year teacher. Got it. Room to improve. But I think I’m using three-act math, WICOR, and other strategy sets in innovative ways, and I get great feedback and performance from the students. I don’t think my administrative observers recognize the unique use and results when they come to my room. It’s been a long week, so maybe I’m being a little bitter. For example, I teach adapted math, and my students read aloud from a fiction book with math themes. We do close reading. They get CLOZE notes and close-reading. And they love three-act math! It really stretches kids with specific executive functioning and reasoning disabilities. All this helps me get them engaged parallel to the standards-based lesson. I don’t know. Maybe those activities are run-of-the-mill, but I don’t see other teachers in my building doing these types of things.

Signed,

Shamelessly Lobbying for a Pat on the Back in South-Central Kansas