Richard Stefano – PME Course progress – An on-going site to post progress directly related to my studies in PME courses.

An on-going blog to post my progress directly related to my studies in PME courses.

So: I am prepared for the first unit of my course. I have a learning goal for my students, I have created a plan for each lesson, I can use my and my students’ reflections to improve my curriculum, and I can demonstrate all of this to the new reading teacher arriving this semester. What…

1. Monitoring Document – First to Second draft

There were three problems with my initial goal and monitoring document: 1: It was too distant. I had achievable proximal goals, but they were in service to a goal that involved a few too many steps. The course asked me to focus on my meta-cognition, and I could feel the overwhelming nature of my goal…

2. Course outline for new teachers

One of my first proximal goals was to create an outline for new Reading Teachers. I’ve had to do this before, but I’ve never put it in writing beyond an email following by a personal discussion. I reflected on two things: 1, the questions and concerns I had and the things I struggled with when…

3. Creating an outline for Unit 1: Creative Writing

As I discussed before, my major obstacle was a lack of motivation due to external circumstances. I had to start looking at my own monitoring document as a real assessment; the same way I looked at my coursework. I decided to combine my next two goals into one single, achievable document. It was a flexible…

4. Creating a reflection document

While writing this reflection document, I really realized the flaw in my distal and proximal goals. They aren’t specific enough. I’m doing the same thing that I always do, which is trusting that I can do a good job without organization, curriculum or detailed plans. That can be a benefit when teaching critical thinking. It’s…

5. Student Feedback and Reflection

I tried to correct some of my previous issues. I used outside resources for some reflection ideas and tried to create a specific task for the students to complete. But most of the work is still a loose discussion that I can have with my students after each unit. I prefer teaching that way, but…