Conversations with Teachers and Students: An Individual Retrospective.

In the past few days, I have had a chance to reflect on the recent events that my group and I had with the math and student teachers we chose to interview.

In interviewing these groups, I found that there is a certain difference with what the students expect from the teachers and what the teachers expect from the students. The teachers we interviewed try their best to engage the students by including more relational oriented material. The students, however, wanted more instrumental learning because of provincial exams. In that note, the teachers found that they did end up teaching for the provincial examinations. With the death of the provincial exam would be a greater change in curriculum.

I think now that my job, as a teacher candidate, is to be able to find a happy medium between what the students want and what the teachers would like to teach. Reflecting on these interviews has given me an idea of what is expected of me as a teacher by the students and what I should expect of myself as a teacher for the students.