1

Teaching
Across
Cultures
Field
Experience
EDU 3271

Standard 8:
Instructional
Strategies
The teacher understands
and uses a variety of
instructional strategies
to
encourage
learners
to
develop deep understanding
of content areas and their
connections, and to build
skills to apply knowledge in
meaningful ways.

During my stay in Oklahoma, I

taught an 8th grade PreAlgebra class. To better prepare
them for Algebra in high school,
I taught various lessons on
polynomials, including defining,
combining,
adding,
and
subtracting
polynomials.
I
borrowed
and
enhanced
lessons from the Holt McDougal
Mathematics
book
and
supplemental materials.
I gathered the students notes,
classwork, and/or homework
every day as a formative
assessment
of
student
understanding of the material. I
would look over materials I
gathered to see where students
were struggling or if they
understood the concepts I
taught in class. One day, one of
my classes struggled with one of
the word problems on the
worksheet. At the beginning of
class, I went over the problem
with
the
students,
using
questioning techniques to guide
their thinking. We completed
the problem together and they

were able to do similar

problems independently.
As a summative assessment, I
created a puzzle activity
where the students were to
match all four sides of a
rectangle together to make
an 8 by 11 piece of paper. The
assessment covered the range
of topics I had taught the
class. Many of the students
struggled with the activity.
They had no idea where to
begin or how to put it together
once I explained the activity to
them. I walked around the
classroom again guiding the
students through questioning
techniques. Some groups were
able to complete the project
with some help from their
classroom teacher and myself.
If I were to do this assessment
again, I would make sure the
students were familiar with this
kind of activity, change some
of the questions around, and
make my directions clearer.