Conversation Summaries

Conversation Summaries

My group consisted of Rory, Amelia and myself. For our conversation, we collaborated to come up with a list of ten questions; five for a student, and five for a teacher. The student we interviewed was my sister, a 10th grade math student, and John Yamamoto was kind enough to participate during the teacher portion. For the teacher portion, our questions were:
1) What did you find to be your biggest challenges with your early teaching experiences?
John indicated that, initially, he had the greatest trouble managing his classroom effectively. He indicated that he would “work around the chatter,” rather than clamping down on it. His recommendation for dealing with this problem was to set very clear expectations, and be consistent about enforcing them.
2) What accommodations have you made to help students with learning difficulties?
With regard to students with learning difficulties, John stated that his work with deaf students at Burnaby South Secondary made him very aware of the pacing of his lessons. Most challenging for John, were the students who spoke little to no English, and he said that, if possible, he would liked to have had more experience working with ESL kids. Most importantly, John stated that it was necessary to be patient and mindful of kids’ histories, as “their problems [in the classroom] often have nothing to do with you.
3) How do you engage students with low motivation?
Here, John emphasized the importance of using humour to break down barriers. Also, he said that it was necessary to acknowledge that math was not their favourite subject, but hopefully they would learn to enjoy it a little bit. Additionally, John made a habit of taking an interest in his students’ interests, in order to relate to them more easily and build rapport. His main goal with these kids was to get them to come to class.
4) How do you vary your explanations when students have difficulty understanding?
Here, John’s main message was simply: “don’t worry about it too much.” Occasionally he would make use of colleagues when stuck with a particular lesson plan, or utilize the more gifted students to help collaborate on a different explanation. Mainly, he indicated that getting comfortable with different approaches to lesson planning was something that came with experience.
5) What do you enjoy most and least about teaching?
John said that it was amazing to form relationships with the students and to watch them grow, but it was often very difficult to see them leave and move on to new phases in life. Also, while he had some complaints regarding how certain topics were presented, and unbalanced curricula, he said that the good vastly outweighed the bad.
I asked my sister the next set of questions in a conversation over the phone:
1) Why do you think it is important to teach math in school?
After some initial uncertainty, she said that she felt math was important for many future careers, and that it helps to improve your reasoning power.
2) How do you develop your first impressions of a teacher?
She said that she judges mainly based on the teacher’s sense of humour and the level of organization in the classroom. She feels that a highly organized classroom is indicative of a strict teacher.
3) Think of a math lesson that you found particularly memorable. What made it unique?
In 7th grade, she had a student teacher give a lesson about Pi by dressing as a chef and feeding the class apple pie.
4) How would you feel about incorporating more group activities in your math class?
Initially, her reaction was quite negative. She indicated that explanations from other students often only contributed to her confusion. She did, however, seem open to the idea of doing group projects.
5) What is an effective way that a teacher has helped you to understand a tricky concept?
In 8th grade, her math instructor explained equation solving using a unique analogy involving negatives being bad and getting sent to the basement until they come out positive on the other side.
Overall, we found the experience to be quite positive and illuminating.