Creativity is an essential component that has to be included
in daily lessons. I believe students are creative by nature and it is the
teacher’s obligation to make sure that they don’t grow out of originality and
imagination. To encourage creativity in my classroom I always provide my
students with options; it can be options on assignments or options on tool
use…. etc. Problems are posed in a way that allows various types of solutions;
students choose the tools to use and also a way to solve the problem. I encourage
different answers and urge students to collaborate in groups to share their
ideas to reach solutions. In addition, I often solve problems incorrectly and
show students the answer; this urges the students to use their judgment and
think critically to suggest changes to be made to my answer. In that way they
show their creative approaches to reach correct answers and become the experts
on the topic. Collaboration and classroom discussions are components that are
found in my classroom on daily basis. I am the mediator and the guide however
the students are the ones discussing, sharing, and reinventing mathematics to
teach one another.
Integration is my approach to support literacy in and beyond
mathematics. I always provide graphic organizers where students can add new
vocabulary words; next we use this work in a descriptive paragraph that
students write at the end of each lesson. In that paragraph students write what
they know about the problem, how they approached it, what conclusions they
found, how they are planning to continue explore it. Furthermore, students are
asked to draw a visual representation of their understanding of the topic. In
this teaching approach I am integrating Mathematics, English, and Art in daily
lessons to offer maximum opportunities for creativity and innovation. In various lessons I encourage students to
further research the history of the concept using media tools such as
computers, smart phones, and iPads when available. As an example on this
strategy, students were asked to work with country flag components and
illustrate their understanding of multiple geometric topics on the flag design.
I instructed students to gather data on the history of the flag and the changes
that happened to it overtime. Students worked in groups to gather data,
demonstrate their understanding of geometry, and write a brief summary on the
flag’s history. Students are further encouraged to present their work and share
with their peers various interesting facts. In this lesson, History, English, Mathematics,
and Art were integrated to allow and promote creativity.
Group activities and team work is crucial for students’ life
long learning and success. Nonetheless, I acknowledge the importance of
independent practice and it’s effect on students who prefer self-learning. To
ensure all students have the opportunity to show independent work, I plan time
for independent practice in all of my lesson plans. Students have the
opportunity to read problems independently and start approaching it at the beginning
of each class and also have time at the end of class to complete assignment
after collaboration. In my opinion, this gives the students the opportunity to
understand the prompt and think of ideas, additionally at the end of class they
can incorporate different ideas or choose to continue working on their own idea
after exploring different perspectives. Students turn in independent work for
assessment; this gives me a deep understanding of their content comprehension
to inform my instruction in following lessons.
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