TEACHING PRACTICES

Teaching practices

Teaching practices

Many contend that how a teacher learns is the basis of his or her instructional style. But this discussion of changing teachers' instructional styles and the role of technology as a catalyst in that process tends not to focus on the teacher at all, let alone how he or she learns. (Forte, 2005, 30-31) Granting that access, technical support, and training are important in the long, incremental process of implementing technology in a classroom, it seems that educational technology could benefit from examining how it might apply theory and research on the change process and teacher development.

Teacher as Decision Maker

According to Shulman , teachers constantly make decisions about how they teach during planning and instruction. Teachers' experiences and knowledge bases also influence their decisions about the best course of action. Shulman characterizes teaching math as a constant stream of decision-making points. Viewing teaching math this way underscores teachers' agency when changing instructional approaches. (Forte, 2005, 30-31)

The classroom is no longer a place for one instructor and thirty students; there are new models of teaching math on the rise. Schools are making use of these new models known as team teaching math and co-teaching math. The purpose of this paper is to define co-teaching math and team teaching math, give a brief explanation of what each one is about, and explain a few of the advantages and disadvantages of the two. (Forte, 2005, 30-31)

Team teaching math

Team teaching math is defined as two or more teachers working together to plan, conduct and evaluate the learning activities for the same group of students. There are six defined models of team teaching math (Lawton).

*When a group of teachers actively share the instruction of all students it is referred to as Traditional Team Teaching math.

*Collaborative Teaching math is when teachers work together designing the course and teach the material by discussing their ideas and theories in front of the students. (Adamson, Adamson, ,Anderson ,Clausen ,Eames, Einarson, Goff, Olness, Sandmann, 2006, 5-7)

*When one teacher is in charge of teaching math the content and the other is responsible for follow-up activities and study skills it is said to be a Complimentary/Supportive Team.

*In the Parallel Instruction setting the class is divided into two groups and each instructor teaches the same material.

*Differentiated Split Class involves dividing the class into small groups based on their learning needs. (Forte, 2005, 30-31)

*The last model in the Monitoring Teacher, ...