"My students love the problem-based learning units we have done this year. They get excited about the projects. It’s so much fun!" It is enthusiasm like this that Kathryn (Katie) Goodhart puts into every aspect of teaching seventh grade mathematics. Katie is a second-year teacher at Midtown Community School in Bayonne, New Jersey. Midtown Community School was chosen to partner with MacKinnon Middle School in Wharton, NJ as a part of the MATRIX grant. With funding from the grant, Katie receives training and technology. She says that she feels like she has hit the lottery with all the things she’s getting this year.
What led you to become a teacher? How many years have you been teaching?
Katie has been teaching for two years. She did not have any interest in being a teacher when she started college. She was a computer science major. It wasn’t until the summer after her freshman year when she took a job in a preschool center that she considered teaching. That experience changed her life. She loved working with the young children and their teachers. It allowed her to be creative in ways that she has never been before. That next school year she changed her major to elementary education and mathematics.
What structures are most helpful to you as a teacher?
With only two workshop days, Katie started having her students schedule their own time. Before she actually implemented a problem-based learning unit, her students were choosing what activities from the class to do and the order in which to do them for each class period. Giving her students choice has increased motivation and independence. Her students look forward to filling in their schedules everyday and ask for the schedule on the days that she doesn’t have one for them. The how-to sheets have also been helpful to Katie. She keeps them posted in the room so that students can use them when they need them. "It’s another great structure that has helped my students be more independent and organized."
What do you like best about teaching in a differentiated classroom?
Katie loves the independence that teaching in a differentiated classroom gives her students. She also likes all the real-life skills that students are learning from the problem-based learning units and new structures she has implemented this year. "They are learning so much about how they learn, what they need to learn, and the self-confidence is really great to see."
What do you do to differentiate in your classroom?
Katie uses pretest before every unit to determine what each of her students knows and what they will need to learn. From the pretest she is able to determine what benchmark lessons, mini-lessons, and how-to sheets they need. She is also able to create different activity lists depending on what they already know.
Which of the Ten Principles is most important to you in your classroom and why?
Katie sees Technology Infusion as the most important principle. Her students are able to pick up and use programs without a lot of help from her. It comes naturally to her students and keeps them excited about the project. Katie feels like it is so important that students feel comfortable with technology today. This year her students are able to use technology more often through the problem-based learning units she has implemented.
What are some differentiated units that you
have implemented this year?
Katie plans to implement four problem-based units this year. She created her first unit in the IDE workshop. It is a unit on fractions called "Recognizable Recipes". In this unit each of Katie’s students had to bring in a recipe for a dish that he or she enjoys on a special occasion or that has significance to his or her family. Students then had to convert the recipe to serve the entire class. The second unit she implemented came from the work that she is doing with the Wharton teachers as part of the MATRIX grant. It was a unit on data displays where students had to record temperature data and recommend a city for a Disney theme park. The third unit is on percents. This "Body Percents" unit has students create dolls based on their own body ratios. The fourth unit that she is considering for this year is a probability unit where students will create games for a school-wide carnival.