I often struggle over how to frame my math methods courses for future teachers. When should I really lay out the approach we will take? How explicit and forceful should I be about it? Is it better to have a range of experiences and then provide a framework for understanding those experiences or is it better to frame things from the beginning?
In recent years I have been starting the semester with a set of very brief vignettes of classrooms and asked them to select which type of teaching they most see themselves doing in the future. The vignettes present three sets of choices:
teacher-centered versus student-centered teaching,
a range of real-world connections, and
a tracked vs. de-tracked school district.
I then use these vignettes to talk about the themes of our course and how we will approach math teaching throughout the semester.
This year, because we're online, I recorded these ideas and I'm having my students comment on them in VoiceThread (an online tool for commenting on videos). You can see the materials here:
Directions for the video clips [↗] (the relevant slide would come right before each video clip, so they would know what to comment on in that part)
I haven't had time, but I also would love to do a study of how future teachers interpret and take up these short vignettes--What do they see as salient in these examples? Are they highlighting what I'm hoping?
What Do You Think?
I'd love to hear what you think of these materials and how you approach this issue in your courses. Reply to my Tweet [↗] with your thoughts.