Clinical field experience
Running Head: IDENTIFYING STUDENT CHALLENGES 1
IDENTIFYING STUDENT CHALLENGES 2
IDENTIFYING STUDENT CHALLENGES
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Identifying student challenges is important as it will help a teacher know the specific needs of the student. Math is a critical subject and requires putting more effort in it. teachers need to come up with strategies that will help students improve their learning in this subject. I have noticed the poor performance of my students in mathematics for a quite now. I have decided to share with my mentor teacher so that she can advise on what to do to raise student’s performance. Out of 25 students we have selected 15 students as sample to work with and identify the areas the majority are finding it hard to tackle. (Hansen & Rodrigues 2017). We have given the students some mathematical tasks to handle. During their assignments I have realized the challenging areas that make them hard to solve the problems.
The students have difficulties in handling multiple questions in mathematics. Most of the also don’t understand the language used in phrasing the questions. And others are not fully attentive in class hence difficulties in solving problems. (Schindler & Lilienthal 2018). I have called the students and shared with them about the areas challenging them when solving the problems as per my observation. They all have agreed that they are having problems with the areas and they need my support.
I have decided to come up with differentiation and intervention strategies that will help my students improve in their performance. I had talked had shared about the strategies with my mentor before and he had been positive about them. Some of these strategies that we want to implement include the following; a differentiation strategy of relating math problems to every day example. This includes give examples with real life while teaching. This will enable students have a greater reflection hence making them more attentive in class. (Wijaya & Doorman 2015). Use of real-life examples is a language that will make them understand questions in an easier way. Second, the use of math EdTech tools. This are math video games which are educative to students. This is visual and will create a long-lasting image in students. Hence when it comes to answering questions, they will remember what they watched. Watching is enjoyable at will capture a lot of students. The third differentiation strategy is creating learning stations where I will divide the class into groups, give them different questions to solve while closely observing them. This will help them put different ideas together which will help in solving the questions. Hence the problem of answering multiple questions will be solved since I’ll keep rotating them to handle different questions.
The interventions strategies that I have decided to apply is that I’ll be giving them assignments and monitor their progress. (Sullivan & Walker 2015). This will help greatly on practice as math requires a lot of practice. Second, I will make sure I give them feedback now and then about their performance as this will motivate them to work harder.
References
Sullivan, P., Askew, M., Cheeseman, J., Clarke, D., Mornane, A., Roche, A., & Walker, N. (2015). Supporting teachers in structuring mathematics lessons involving challenging tasks. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 18(2), 123-140.
Schindler, M., & Lilienthal, A. (2018). Eye-tracking for studying mathematical difficulties: Also in inclusive settings. In Annual Meeting of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME-42), Umeå, Sweden, July 3-8, 2018 (Vol. 4, pp. 115-122). PME.
Hansen, N., Jordan, N. C., & Rodrigues, J. (2017). Identifying learning difficulties with fractions: A longitudinal study of student growth from third through sixth grade. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 50, 45-59.