Assignment 1A: Reflecting on my personality and teaching/learning styles.

Hi!  I'm Nate Woodward, and I teach Math at Elk Grove High School in Elk Grove, CA, which is near Sacramento.

I first started teaching at Heald College, in a variety of subjects.  My degrees are in music but I minored in Physics in my undergraduate program, and Heald needed effective math instructors.

I worked as a substitute in the district, and gained a reputation among teachers that knew me as an effective sub, both in teaching content and in managing a classroom. When one school asked around for potential candidates, I was recommended.

I also work part time in Music, but I know I'll always have options as a math teacher, and I really enjoy the subject and the vocation of teaching. 

In past Myers-Briggs tests, I've come out as an ISTP, but in the online test I just took, I came out as INFP, though not particularly polarized on

any of the four spectrums.  I'm almost exactly in the middle of the Intuition-Sensing Spectrum, according to this test. I'm personally skeptical this is a very robust tool.   The descriptions of the two types seems to suggest this tool sees deeply held values as the driver for "F" types and logic or analysis for "T" types.  But one value I deeply hold--and I think this is why I like teaching Math--is that emotions are too volatile to be very reliable guides to good decisions.  We should listen to them, but wisdom is knowing how to thinking about your emotions, your values, and the facts you know, and make the best call you can. 

I definitely can see my "T" side in how I relate to students. I'm much more fascinated by what exactly they don't understand and how I can help them learn a concept.  I have to build habits of interacting with them on a personal level, because I'm generally more focused on the planning and design of curriculum.  A friend of mine says she doesn't think of herself as a teacher of a subject as much as a teacher of students.  But I think I'm oriented much more toward thinking about the subject.  This site recommends "Education Consultant" as a good match for a career.

My teaching/learning style analysis looked like this:

I know that I'm much more verbal than visual. I've had to develop a habit of writing things down on the board or on screen for my more visual learners.  I remember what I hear, but MOST students do not!  It's interesting that I came out as an intuitive learner, but when I read the description that "Sensors are more likely thanintuitors to resent being tested on material that has not been explicitly covered in class," I realized it's about making connections rather than following one procedure carefully. And that makes more sense with what I know about myself.   The mathematical practices from the Common Core standards really emphasize being able to make connections and meaning, to see the structure of mathematical expressions.  When teaching students, I need to focus on helping students with a more "Sensing" orientation really identify the process for making connections and explaining structure, so they have a procedure for it.

I also realize that as an Active learner, I often see students who are not putting pen to paper as being off task, but it's important I accept that unlike me, some of them do better reflecting on what they've seen before starting to write.