Week 3 Reflection

During week 3 I taught my third grade students about telling time. I remember teaching this subject last year in the fall and found it equally difficult. I was surprised, however, by where I found the difficulties. The previous third grade class had difficulty with minutes. They would often forget to count by fives or be five minutes over or under, because they did not count accurately. They also had difficulty with elapsed time. My current placement classroom seemed very prepared in telling time and could read clocks quickly. Their problem was in telling time to the quarter, like for example saying 3:15 is quarter past three or 5:45 is quarter to six. This class also had difficulties with elapsed time. This reminded me that although I can anticipate reactions and misunderstandings from past experiences, every class is different even when they come from the same past educators. I realized that the past educators may have realized where struggles were and made lessons for the following class more directed towards that past struggle. This can result in other areas of understanding weakening. I had created a weeks worth of lessons based on the anticipation that my students would have been instructed the same way as the past class and would have similar strengths and weaknesses. I quickly recognized that I was wrong and made adjustments to my lessons, but it was a wake up call. I had always assumed that most older teachers stick to the same lessons if they seem to be "working" and the upper classes will have to fill the same "gaps" repetitively.
I had never before had lessons feel so unsatisfying as my time lessons during week 5. I asked my mentor teacher for advice, which she gave very willingly. She supplied endless amounts of materials and gave me following lesson suggestions. She also helped me with elapsed time in a simplified way that the students seemed to better understand. I was very appreciative of her support and explained that I had not expected such confusion and bewildered looks from the students. My mentor teacher explained that time is a cognitive understanding some students are just not capable of fully understanding yet. And I can see that in my students' eyes that some of them, it clicks. They understand time immediately and can solve any elapsed time problem with just a few moments of thinking. Others, were given multiple styles of instruction, walked out hours and minutes on a huge outdoor sidewalk clock, and were provided individual instruction by myself or my mentor teacher and still only got a 35% on the assessment. If this topic requires high cognitive understanding, why is it in the third grade curriculum? Who really decided third graders should be able to tell time, when most teachers I know can see that time is a difficult subject for these young minds. It frustrates me knowing that as a teacher I will be forced to teach students things that I know will be too difficult for some and will make them feel bad about themselves or helpless possibly. I never want my students to feel this way. I want my students to feel they have conquered everything I put in their path and feel confident about themselves. As a student, I always felt I already knew everything and my teacher just helped to me find it inside myself. I want my students to feel that way. I want confident, curious students and I worry the standards and tests will stop that out of them. I will do my best to give them the armor they need.