Rationale
Effective instruction is delivered in many ways, but most frequently occurs in a flexible learning environment that incorporates the principles of differentiated learning. If students are appropriately challenged by the material they are learning and feel heard and understood by their teacher and classmates, the amount of disruptive behaviors is kept to a minimum. In this mathematics lesson, I introduced the Pythagorean Theorem to sixth graders. I introduced the concept in several ways, assign a homework sheet which can be adjusted for different levels of levels of understanding, and at the end of the unit, I designed an assessment that tested for comprehension and application of the theorem.
Reflection
Teaching involves a considerable amount of on-the-job-training, especially for interns. I thought I had this lesson plan thoroughly thought out when I originally tried it on my seventh grade students, but as will sometimes happen, I ran short on class time and had to pare down the practice assignment. As I did not finish explaining part 2 of the homework (the part about making the triangles right by replacing one of the legs), I simplified the assignment to just “determine which triangles are right triangles”. A funny thing happened, though--five of my students kept on going that night and completed the assignment. That was the day I figured out that I could use challenging assignments as formative assessments, and get a feel for both comprehension and student affect about the material.