Last class really got me thinking about what different high school classes there are out there. I didn’t even know there was a course called Mathematics: Workplace and Everyday Life which is interesting because this would seem to be the most useful and realistic but most students do not take it or know about it. I almost feel it should be a required course because it teaches you about exactly what it says - everyday things in the workplace. Students attending university will almost never take this course which is CRAZY because they all graduate but don’t have the skills to do everyday tasks like taxes for example.
I also got a chance to think about which courses I would like to teach versus which ones I wouldn’t like to teach. This was interesting for me because I never thought about which one I wouldn’t want to teach but in reality that might be the one I have to teach some point in my career. So it was a big eye opener for me, to really understand what classes I will potentially be teaching. I would love to teach Everyday Life in the Workplace so I can learn the skills I missed out on. I feel it would be a very interesting course to be apart of.
The curriculums are very packed. I’m sort of worried if I’ll be able to teach my students all the concepts and have them understand it procedurally and conceptually. When I was in school I learned everything procedurally so it will be hard for me to explain things conceptually. That is something I will have to work on but let’s leave that for another day. Below is all the math courses you can enroll in, 3 of which I did not know existed.
The end of your post highlights the challenges of many. How can we teach conceptually if we were taught procedurally? How will we cover the curriculum in a way that students really understand? I find it is helpful to really look closely at the curriculum, to make sure we aren’t going beyond the curriculum (some textbooks do), and focus on the big ideas of the course.
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