Diving into the fall

The first week of the fall semester is close to its end. I've been through nearly every class at the University of Michigan once and, best of all, have spent two days with the my mentor teacher and our students at Romulus High School. This is the part of the MAC program that I've been most excited, yet most nervous about.

The opportunity work with students, teachers and other professionals in a school environment has been very motivating. Romulus High is a caring community, where there is a lot of support among the staff and an obvious dedication to the students. This academic year I'll be working with Karl Wukie, a veteran math teacher at the school. Karl and I will be teaching three different classes this trimester; calculus, geometry and algebra. As might be expected, within those classes there are students with a wide range of academic abilities. I am looking forward to seeing how Karl works with those different groups throughout the semester, and I'm sure I will learn plenty that will help me when I begin student teaching full time in January.

Karl has a nice rapport with the other staff members at the school, as well as the students, and has expressed a number of times that he is open to letting me work as much with the students as I'd like. I appreciate the trust he has shown in me, and look forward to taking an even more active role in the classroom in the coming weeks.

As for my classes at Michigan, the field experience class seems like it will be quite valuable since everyone in the MAC cohort will be able to discuss their experiences in their different schools. I'm also pleased the way the math methods class so far. Since I'm getting serious about math for the first time since graduating from college years ago, the more math (and math instructional methods) to which I can be exposed, the better.