Reflection on Assignment 2

I am very glad that we got to try this experiment with Pythagoras' theorem with a group that is supportive! 

Given the feedback on the lesson plan from Susan, I was interested to see how this might play out. My experience with grade 8 students is mixed. The first time I taught Pythagoras' theorem, I did the usual (or what I thought was the usual) cut out unit squares from a 3-4-5 triangle template that I found in a resource book. I found that this only encouraged the students to want to draw squares on every triangle and did not really support the cognitive shift from actual squares to the relationship between the areas, let alone the sides. So, when we went to actually use Pythagoras' theorem in class, they told me it felt separate from the cutting of the squares. So, that meant that the next year I tried a different visual proof for Pythagoras' theorem. Similar. They thought it was cool, but that didn't link the algebraic statement. One year, I tried blocks and setting up tables and triangles. They built towers. The next year, I found this video. And, in that particular instance, it was a game-changer. This is my recollection of Johnny T's outburst (a kid in the back row of the bottom Year 8 class who hadn't volunteered a lot up until then).

    JT: Woah. They're the same.
    Me: What's the same?
    JT: The squares. The small ones with the big one.
    Me: What about the squares is the same?
    JT: The space inside.
    Me: The space inside. We have a math word for that.
    Another student: Area.
    ...

So, in that instance, these 43 seconds set up the entire unit. I did not expect that. For us, it worked. Therefore, I am grateful to my team members for considering this video to share as an introduction to test out in this micro-teaching.

I am also thankful for the feedback of the group members. A lot of the feedback looked at where there could be some confusion in the video. That I appreciate, because it is important to see where these ideas can arise and how they affect the possible plan (and whether to place it elsewhere in the lesson or to set it aside altogether).

Apart from that, I feel other features of the lesson were reasonably chosen. I'm glad we got to try a visual thinking strategy: See. Think. Wonder. This is something that could be followed up on more substantially in a longer lesson. In this specific case, leaving that aside may have helped our timing insofar as Sissie may not have felt rushed at the end; we could have engaged with ideas of learners more as they pertained to Pythagoras; and we could have devoted more time to Pythagoras' theorem as he shared it. I am not too worried that we didn't get to the algebraic representation of it. I was most interested in the relationships. And, Pythagoras didn't offer the statement as we know it now. So, while that was also a critique from one of the learners, I feel that would have come at a later stage in the lesson (it was actually our next slide!). Nonetheless, we arrived at the outcome stated at the beginning of the microteaching event of arriving at Pythagoras' theorem (not our current representation of it).

My group members were very supportive during this process. I was worried that I wasn't contributing as much as I needed (I knew I was sick. I found out afterwards that I had pneumonia -- crazy!), so I am thankful for their support.