Today I taught my first math lesson. I came to class very excited today because I knew the students would have a positive reaction to the activity. I taught tessellations. For those of you who do not know what tessellations are any patterns made up of repeating shapes that cover a surface completely without overlapping or leaving any gaps. I asked the students to tell me some examples of different kind of tessellations that they see every day. I got many awesome answers including the pattern of my plaid shirt I was wearing.
In my development I really focused on giving directions, as this was a major part of my activity that I was doing. I gave directions in multiple ways including speaking, writing directions on the board, and asking students to clarify my instructions. However, there was still some confusion. One thing that I could have done differently is to physically show the students how to create their index card sketching tool for their tessellations. (How to cut it, how to tape it etc.). I made sure to constantly ask my students if they needed help and or clarification. When the students were creating their drawings I went around each table and asked them what type of transformation did they use. This way I could go to each group and talk about transformations with them I found that this method was very effective.
Overall the students really enjoyed creating their own tessellations. It made me feel good that they continued to want to work on their work even after the class was over. However, I think my closure could have been a lot stronger. The class felt like an art class, so I think I could have reinforced why we were doing tessellations in math class in the closure.
Curtis Bourassa 