Lesson Plan for Activity 2
Summary of Activity 2: Shadow a Student
In this assignment, prospective teachers are asked to “shadow” a student for a period of time (ideally, one day, but they could break up the time over two days; 6 hours of total shadowing time is preferred, of which a maximum of 2 hours are in math class). The critical aspect is that NOT ALL shadowing occurs during math class and that shadowing does NOT occur while the prospective teacher is teaching a lesson or conducting an activity with students.
Launch
Provide a brief description of the assignment, sharing the above overview and goals. Then ask/discuss the following: (1) What prospective teachers should look for/observe when shadowing a student. Discuss what we mean by competence. (2) Prospective teachers should expect to learn things when they shadow a child that they did not learn from their interview – shadowing provides additional insights, allows them to see the child in multiple contexts, in action, all things that are not possible in the getting to know you interview.
Explore
The Explore part of this activity happens outside of the methods class and results in a written assignment that is turned in to the methods instructor. (Alternatively, prospective teachers could complete an in class quick write in which they reflect on the shadow a student experience). Either version (out of class write up or in class quick write) should include responses to the essential prompts for this activity.
Summarize
The Summary part consists of a debriefing discussion in class on the day the assignment is submitted. Present the following prompts to guide small group discussions, and then follow with whole class sharing from the small groups: (1) What did you learn about your student in this activity? (2) How can you use what you learned about the student to inform your mathematics teaching? (3) What did you learn about yourself in this process? What did you think of the process itself?
TEACH Math 