A Smart Investment

            Although I’ve been teaching for a few months now one thing I’ve learned is that typically – the more time I put into a lesson the more likely it is to be successful.  This was certainly true this week.  There were a few lessons where I was just trying to cover material but other days where I was legitimately excited to teach my lesson.  It might have been the set I created or the activity I had the kids doing but investing more time into planning is a wise investment.  Throughout the semester of math content area meetings that’s one thing I’ve learned. 

            Our professor is a master when it comes to interesting and engaging lessons.  When I think about spending an entire Sunday planning, I’m not always too excited.  At the same time just having guided notes and practice problems from the textbook both bores the class and also makes for potentially more disciplinary problems. 

            One lesson I completed this past week that was particularly fun was one where I had the kids play golf.  Not real golf but golf review.  Each ‘hole’ was a skill they learned to review for our test the week earlier.  One important note though was that the preparation is only as good as the classroom management that goes along with it.  The morning I was teaching this lesson was the morning I was being observed formally for Mississippi Teacher Corps.  The lesson was originally supposed to be done in groups but when the first students walked in and saw their partner many of them refused to work with that person.  As 7^th graders I suppose I should expect that but at the same time it was very frustrating because I had put so much time into it that simply the students refusal to work with certain members of the class ruined the group work aspect of the lesson.

            Although I spent much time preparing the lesson one thing I would change is to start the lesson then assign the kids to group work.  I definitely am still not sure about how to group the kids or even force them to work together but any suggestions would be helpful. 

            Even though we didn’t work in groups it was encouraging because the lesson was successful.  The kids enjoyed it and my observation actually went pretty well.  I still was unsuccessful with group work BUT putting more time into lesson planning clearly pays off.