Short Practicum. Story!

I was asked to teach a lesson for October 28, 2009. That lesson was the quadratic formula. I was asked to teach this lesson twice in a row. Once in the period before lunch, and another the period after lunch so that I would be able to figure out what went wrong in the first period and fix it for the second period. This is the story of the first period: Block C.

In the days leading to d-day, I was busy writing out the lesson plan from which I would impart my knowledge to the students of the class. I would start off the class reviewing material from the previous day, hand out a quiz, and proceed with the lesson. This lesson consisted of presenting the quadratic formula, working through some examples and proving why the quadratic formula looks the way that it is. I had originally planned to prove the equation before moving on to do examples because that was the way I was taught the formula. Under advice from my sponsor teacher, and experience team teaching the students, I decided to take the advice and adapt my lesson plan.

On the day of the lesson, I was nervous. My palms were cold, sweaty and I had butterflies in my stomach. The bell rings to mark the end of the previous period. "Fifteen minutes", I said to myself as I packed my bag to go to the classroom across the hall from the student prep room. I opened the door. I crossed the hallway. I dropped my bag off to the side of the room. I unpacked my notes and readied myself, high on adrenaline. My sponsor teacher walks up to me and asks, "how are you feeling?". I replied, "I'm nervous". He offers me tea to calm me down, and I take him up on his offer. It helped. I review my notes, and the bell rings. D-day.

"Good morning!" The lesson began. Review questions were written up. Review questions were answered. The quiz was handed out. The quiz was answered. It was the right difficulty and length. The lesson was going well.

"Who thinks completing the square is tedious and painful to use?" Hands rose. "Here's a faster way of solving quadratic equations." Time to teach the quadratic formula. The quadratic formula was presented. Everyone was happy. Engaged to boot. Examples went up on the board. Lots of audience participation. Hands were freely rising to give the answers. The lesson was going well.

"Who wants to see why the quadratic formula looks the way it looks?" A few inquisitive looks. Not bad. I can proceed. I proceeded. I erred. Twice. I gave up the proof. The lesson wasn't going well anymore.

"Ten minutes" I thought to myself. "I've lost the kids. Time for a story." So I start off the story with "Did you know that. . ." The lesson finished.

So what did I learn? I learned that it doesn't take much to lose a class and one needs a back up plan to be able to bring the students back from a disengaged state.