Methods: Middle Years A

Catalog description

This course focuses on you as both a learner and a teacher of mathematics and science. Its development is premised on the notion that in order for you to foster understanding and engagement for all your students, you have to develop and draw on different kinds of knowledge, skills, and dispositions. As a result, the course is designed to help you hone your practice as a teacher of mathematics and science and involves you learning about learners (yourself included), the understandings and conceptions they hold, and the developmental processes through which they learn. It also involves developing skills in teaching practices that engage students in mathematical and scientific exploration, creating an environment that facilitates reasoning and promotes inquiry, and finding ways to analyze and learn from your own teaching. Good teaching is essentially a decision laden process, and the decisions you make are contextually based. Consequently, the aim of the course is not to provide you with a bag of tricks that are applicable or generalizable to all situations, but rather to help you develop necessary tools for thinking and working as a teacher. These tools include ways to explore scientific and mathematical content, assess your students understanding on an ongoing basis, and help all your students develop as learners of mathematics and science. Prerequisite: Enrollment in Urban Teaching Residency Program.