Algebra Teacher Collaboration Response

Ms. Warburton and Ms. Jones are two algebra teachers at a middle school who teach different students but use the same lesson to do it. It provides a very consistent learning environment for all the students at the school because they're all being taught the same way. It is a great study for collaboration in learning. 

Ms. Warburton mentions that confusion leads to learning. What she is really going for when she says that is that students learn when they're wrong and the learn from it. They expect confusion, get past the struggle and learn. That way, they end up learning more than they probably would if it was just told to them. When the students get confused, they have to work past that to understand every process. 

Ms. Jones mentions that she likes her students to discuss math because it builds their confidence. What she says about this is, that what her students say matters. All of the ideas come from her students. It helps them speak and discuss with the vocabulary, and that leads to understanding ton concepts.

There are things about each teacher that I really liked that while their lessons and teaching methods were consistent, each of them also brought their personality to the classroom. Ms. Jones says that she is probably louder than most teachers but Ms. Warburton mentions that it sounds like she is cheering for her class as though she was at a football game. I liked her energy because it was so much positive feedback for her students. Ms. Warburton on the other hand has a number system for the noise level in her room. This keeps her students on task and also helps them know when to figure things out on their own, and when it's okay to ask for help. I also like Ms. Warbuton's scoring system which helps her students learn from their mistakes. They're not just marking right or wrong, they are writing if they know why they got it wrong, or if they still need help on it. Ms. Jones is great during her warm up because she lets her students write their answers and their work on the board. It gets them involved and helps them see where they could have made a mistake and if another student made the same mistake, they also see that. 

To look at a few other teachers I decided to search for teachers who have talked about their math warm up routine because that is what I focused on in our collaboration video. The first thing I found was a video from the Teaching Channel. It is about a teacher who does a unique warm up that focuses on the mistakes the students make and how to fix it. I think that is my favorite thing to focus on because I feel like it helps the students the most. 

As I was doing research I realized that the assessment that I was focusing on is called formative assessment. You use their mistakes to help the students learn and make sure they understand what is going on. Not just in math. The second video is a video on formative assessment and how it can be used in more than one context in the classroom.