And the award goes to....

There is always a time in a teachers career when they question their effectiveness in the classroom.  I questioned my effectiveness throughout the school year, daily.  Were my students truly learning? Or merely cramming all this in their short-term memories to be later dumped? You say there's an easy solution to that.  Make your test or assessments accumulative.  I struggled with assessments. My district wanted multiple choice test that mimicked the state exam (MCT2), but what I found out early on was that their reading ability or lack there of was getting in the way.  Simply put the kids did not comprehend what they were being asked to do, and did not know the process for problem solving.  

I tried to avoid this problem by disregarding the district and gave my own style assessments, free response.  My students were doing well, or so I thought, until that day in December when the district decided to give my students and exam to see their progress thus far.  The results.... not good, I utterly failed as a teacher.  My kids did horrible on that district test.  I was shocked, disappointed, an scared.  Here I thought I was doing an okay job as a teacher. But all I was doing was enabling my students.  They have to read on the MCT 2 and be able to solve those problems.  It was then that I completely changed my strategy.  I had to teach them how to read math problems and solve them, something they have gotten through school without doing thus far.  I decided to stop what I was doing and teach problem solving and critical thinking for three weeks straight.  Thats all we worked on. I taught them case.

K- Key words and information.  I had my students circle he given information and underline the key words like: sum, total, difference, times, etc.
A- What is the question ASKING you to do?  Is it a two part question? What operation(s) are you going to use?
S- Solve. Now that you have the given information and the key words. We can answer the question or questions, using the operation(s).
E- Explain. You should always be able to explain your answer.  This step was the hardest to enforce but I made my students check their work and write a sentence or two, explaining what they did and why.

At first my principal was apprehensive; she did not like the idea of me deviating so much from the pacing guide and the other teachers in my department.  But after the first week she turned around.  She frequently stop by my classroom to observe the students using KASE on activities and assignments.  She loved my lessons so much that she asked me to show the other math teachers how to problem solve with KASE and incorporate it in their lessons.  My students caught on after week one and by week three they were pros.  My students now knew how to problem solve. YAY!  From then on, I made sure that my students used KASE to solve all word problems. I made sure to incorporate it in every lesson.

My principal really like my approach to problem solving.  She liked it so much that she made sure I taught every student in 7th grade during the state test review.  This meant doubling classes, but I was happy for the challenge.  What's twenty more in the class?  Teaching 35-40 students at a time is a challenge but my classroom management has never been better.  I learned that it doesn't matter whether there is 20 or 40 students in the class.  You can still be an effective teacher if your classroom management is on point.  All in all I think I had a successful year.  And to top it, I received the “Rookie Award” at my school.  I was recognized for my creative and innovative ideas ,and  my commitment to my students during my first year of teaching. I was completely shocked and grateful for this reward, that my administration saw how hard I worked. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” -in the words of Halle Berry during her oscar acceptance speech.  Wow, I cannot believe I got that award. I never win, but I did this time.