TL2: What sort of teacher preparation do I need in order to teach the lessons in this problem-based format?
This vignette is written by a member of the writing team who had previously experienced teaching the case and subsequently observed a colleague teaching the case. It highlights the difference in mental preparation and focus required to teach problem-based lessons rather than traditional Maths lessons.
Chris is a young teacher in his second year of teaching and with minimal Maths teaching training. When I mentioned we had a series of lessons he may like to try, he was very keen to give some different a go. We spent a fair bit of time prior to Chris commencing the lessons discussing activities, expected pupil questions etc. Despite this preparation, in discussion following each of the first two lessons Chris expressed that he felt he had not got the most out of the lesson. Comments included, “I don’t think I had thought about the depth of some of the ideas in that lesson enough”, “I probably could have got the pupils to do some more thinking”, “There were probably some better questions I could have asked”, and “I felt under prepared”.
We had a long discussion about what preparation may make this type of lesson richer. We discussed the idea that standard preparation for a traditional Maths class was focussed on ensuring the teacher could clearly explain a new Mathematical process for that day. Chris said his focus in preparing for the first two lessons of this Task was similar, concentrating on the Maths skills required. Going into these lessons with traditional teacher preparation ensured pupils were able to perform accurate percentage calculations and draw carefully and correctly labelled graphs during the first two lessons. However, it was felt that through this tradition preparation and focus pupils did not get as much out of the lessons as the might. It was felt the pupils –
Chris said next time he taught a problem based learning lesson, while ensuring pupils could capably complete all the required Maths, he would prepare by carefully considering some closed and open ended questions that could follow the tradition Maths part of each activity. By being prepared to get pupils to consider their results from the ratio worksheet, the pupils may have developed a better of just how small a joey is. By being prepared to get pupils to carefully analyse their graphs, Chris felt he could encourage pupils to identify key stages in their growth which could later affect the joey’s feeding patterns. He also felt that preparing for the lessons by carefully considering the order of the activities and the links between them, he could continually encourage pupils to understand where the sequence was heading and encourage pupils to be part of the design process of the activities that they need to do to achieve the overall aim of saving the joey.