Interview Q & A's

I interviewed my practicum teacher Brian Miller. He has been teaching for about fifteen years and his teaching philosophy is very inquiry based. He feels that students would rather learn through doing than by listening to him lecture all day and he has had a lot of success with this. His classes have far above average test scores compared to the rest of the school. Here is what he had to say about these questions. 1. How does the CMP curriculum align with the national Common Core and NCTM standards? The NCTM aligns pretty much exactly with the state standards because they come from the NCTM standards. They use the CMP textbooks and those cover all of the state standards (but they have to skip around to different grade level books sometimes to cover all of the state benchmarks), so he believes that they all align pretty closely 2. Numerous students are a year or more behind in the basics. How does one address the needs of these students on a daily basis so they can get up to grade level and also experience success in the inquiry to investigation philosophy of the CMP? Math lab is a class that is available to students who are struggling and it is offered in place of a normally required music class. Math lab is taken along with the standard 6th, 7th, or 8th grade math class and they focus on the aspects of math that these students are struggling with and going over concepts learned that day or in previous days of class. Students in math lab are recommended by teachers from the previous year or students who are not meeting the standards on the OAKS tests are usually required to take it. The school also offers before and after school tutorial that is available to all students. It takes place three mornings and three afternoons a week. 3. What is the role of homework (and accountability) in the CMP? The role of homework in the CMP is to make sure that students can do problems that we have done in class on their own. They also do extension problems that are basically extra credit, so it also shows you which students are willing to put in extra work. Students are rarely given time to work on homework in class, so it really does show you what students can do on their own (assuming they aren't working on it with friends or copying). 4. CMP Investigations compose of small-groups (pair-share, teamwork, cooperative learning).Describe several classroom management techniques that ensure all students are actively engaged. Eg, how are individual roles established? Accountability (Group, individual)? Ongoing assessment(s) and checking for understanding? Mr. Miller keeps students actively engaged in class by being energetic and funny. His students love him and they feed off his energy. He also is constantly walking around the classroom and checking on students to make sure they are staying on task and understanding everything. Students ask him and their peers for help when they are working on assignment and he feels that letting students work together is a good way to keep them having fun because they are interacting and not getting bored. He also offers a lot of one on one help for students who seem to be off task or copying answers and not doing the work. It lets those students know that he is watching them and he is usually able to stop those things before they become a problem.