Observations: Key to Success

As part of my required work for being a first year teacher this year, I have to observe teachers who are doing good things in area's that I want to work on and improve in.  My focus for improvement this year is primarily math.  I say primarily because at the end of the day, I really think I can improve in so many different ways, but I need to focus on one at a time to be the most successful.

So, on Monday, I went and completed my first two (of many) observations that I needed to do.  I went with the attitude that I just need to get these done and over with so that I can check the box and get back to the craziness of things that need to get done in my own room (and preparing for my own fall observation and evaluation by my principal this week).

What did I find from these observations?  A quick realization that I like little to nothing that I am doing in math.  What seems like forever, teaching math for 80 minutes a day, flew by and we went OVER in time after trying some of what I learned!  My kids were more engaged after I tried what I learned and I am certain were far more successful than they have been in this unit thus far.

Up to now, my math lesson has been to follow the teacher guide to help me think about the lesson because I was convinced that I couldn't do it all this year and had no idea where to start thinking about "creating" my own math lessons.  I went to observe a fourth grade teacher in my building today who uses the book titled Number Talks by Sherry Parrish to guide her own "number talks" in the classroom.  After 15 minutes of watching her and taking notes constantly, I was so excited to get back to my classroom, pick up my kids and dive right in.  I changed my math lesson the minute the kids walked in and did a variation of these "number talks."

What I found to be different?  My kids were more engaged than they have ever been in math, my instruction was more focused than ever before, and the result at the end of the lesson was that the kids got the concepts and information I needed to get to them.  I typically have 6 or 7 students working with me as I re-instruct them from the lesson that day, but today, I had 2!  I am so excited about this lesson and how it went, that I cannot wait to try it again tomorrow and see how it goes.

So in the end, I found that observing other teachers, no matter how time consuming or tedious it seems, it really is one important key to success in the classroom.  The two teachers I observed (one fourth grade and one first grade) gave me so many great ideas to try and work with in my classroom this week and in future weeks that I cannot wait to teach 80 minutes of math tomorrow!