Ded Vs. Ind Teaching Strategies, Fall 2005

I like both of the teaching strategies. A con that I see with Deductive is that you are just telling the kids the information and they are never critically thinking about what they are learning. A con that I see with Inductive is that what if you teach a child a topic that they honestly still do not understand after you have taught it three times or more using that same strategy. Some kids need to be told exactly what they are learning through Deductive in order to better understand the topic. Deductive is easier to teach when teaching lower level math (which I am teaching so I can only speak on that topic) because the students have not yet began to learn to think critically. They need the foundation of math and Algebra in order to learn in higher level subjects. I have used both strategies in my classroom thus far this year. I use Deductive everyday and I used Inductive when teaching Order of Operations this year. For my students and for me, the Deductive Strategy works best. As a first year math teacher I have not seen math in a while and there are some concepts that I still have to get used too again. In order for me not to be confused or for the students not to be confused, I am going to have teach it straight to them by using Deductive. Once I have mastered a topic or thought about it in depth before I teach then I will start using the Inductive teaching strategy for a few lessons.

One of my Favorite Math teachers

ok....all these blogs are starting to run together! With that being said, I have liked all of my math teachers. My favorite one of all wasn't necessarily a teacher, but one of my math tutors. In 7th grade, I took pre-algebra and I just could not understand the Distributive Property (which I just finished teaching) and polynomials. So with all my friends understanding and me staying after school and still not grasping it, I took it upon myself to look in the phone book for my county, Howard County, and look up a tutor. I went to the 'tutor section' and ran across a woman who specialized in children with ADD and ADHD. At this point in my life, i had to come to grisps with that fact that I had ADHD, I wasn't afraid to tell nobody NO MORE!!! and so I told my mom about the tutor and we called and went. I hoped in the passenger side and my drove her red car. We made it their and I liked Mrs. Griffin. She had a son (white boy) who had ADHD, so she knew how to "treat kids like us". Well after going to her twice a week (one week day and weekend) my grades went up and so did my confidence in the beginning level of Algebra. She constantly gave me extra work to do while with her and took me further than where the class was so I could be ahead of the game. We would stay on a topic until I understood it FULLY. She let me take breaks and OF COURSE use the chalk board she had in her house, to make use of my hyperactivity. I went to her in 11th grade when I was taking the ACT to get tutorting for the math section as well. I called and told her about my acceptance in MTC and told her that one day I want to eventually open up a math tutoring business like her.

Katrina

I would have never thought that I would have a "Day Off" or "snow day" in the North teaching down. But I did....early than expected....during my fourth week of teaching. Did I mention I miss home?!!!

Mental Day

I have a right to one. Why did our principal give us our progress report forms YESTERDAY for TODAY!!!!