Top Ten that fit my philosophy and style

1. Using 4 minutes of class before correcting homework to have the students check homework with their group mates, but she also makes sure students are not just copying their neighbors answer by walking around the room.  This fits me because I want to set all students up for success and by checking answers with their group mates they can have someone to fall back on if they get an answer wrong.
2. Using a timer to keep everything flowing is one of the things that I would want to use as a teacher because it will keep me on task, and it helps keep the kids on task.  I really enjoy how this keeps the kids mind off watching the clock.  Instead of sitting and watching the clock for the end of the class period the kids know that they can put their things away after the bell goes off and not until the bell goes off.
3. Board work is a simple and helpful way to get students to review, an assessment, and to help students get started for class.  First students write down the board work and then the teacher will facilitate the answering of the board work.  This fits into my philosophy because having students start out working instead of waiting for me to start the class is a good way for me to get ready for the start of class and asses if anything needs to be brought up again for review that day.
4. Questioning technique used for helping shy students get involved.  What happens is my teacher will set her shy or quiet students up for success by knowing that they have the right answer before calling on them.  She does this by walking around the room and talking to individual students.  This has helped some of her students gain confidence in her classroom.  This fits my philosophy because I was one of the shy students that didn’t say much in the classroom.
5. Students sit in Groups of three.  This fits with me because I want my students to be able to work together on their mathematics homework. 
6. Surveys sent home to parents about the student and information about the parent and Students are given a survey to fill out.  These both fit me because I am interested in my students lives.  Where and how and what they are and also to get in touch with the parents.  I want my parents to be involved and I want to know a little about my parents and how they feel about their students.  It’s a good way to get to know a lot of people in a little time.
7. Classroom management in general.  Being able to walk around the room and where she places her students.  How she decides what groups students are going to be in and how she deals with problems in the classroom.  All these things she does silently almost so the kids don’t know what she is doing.   This I want to be able to do and hope that I can address some of the classroom management as well as my teacher does.
8. Life Lessons in the mathematics classroom.  For example a fight in the hall breaks out know your students enough to know if you can talk to about the fight and bring friendship and other things students worry about at that age into the lesson.  You will get just as much done because the students will feel better for being able to talk about it.  I enjoy this philosophy because of what we are learning about middle school and because I have seen it work in a classroom.  The students all settled down after talking for five minutes and the teacher got in a life lesson plus the mathematics she needed to get done that day.  The students learned more that day then just slope they learned how to be a friend and how to stick up for your friends and even other peers.  Something they can use even if they don’t graduate high school and something I want to teach my students.
9. Check your answer.  This is a simple thing that she has students do.  She has the students fold the paper in half length wise and draw a line down the center of the paper.  The students do their work on the left hand side of the paper and on the right side of the line they check their answer.  This fits me because I wish I would have had more mathematics teachers make me check my answers.
10. Be real.  Tell corny jokes, enjoy being in the classroom and the students and know what is going on in the school and in the classroom.   This fits with me because mathematics is hard to make fun and interesting every day and I want it to be.  If I can be fun and interesting then maybe my students will have fun and be interested in mathematics.

Top Ten that do not fit my philosophy and style

1. Picking one kids work to show the rest of the classroom is something that I never want to do because I know that most students have a very low self esteem and I would never want to lower it.  I also never want a students work to stand out good or bad. 
2. Perfectionism in every aspect of the classroom.  This includes making sure that all students have the same heading, using a red pen for corrections and having my desk in perfect order.  I am naturally not a perfectionist and I would like to pick the battles that I fight in the classroom and having the same heading on every students work is not a battle that I want to choose to fight.
3. Using 90% of their homework questions on the test.  She says that the majority of the test is going to come directly out of homework in her algebra class.  I don’t think this fits with me because if it were me in the class in junior high I would be more likely to slack off and try to get answers from my friends then to do the work myself. I also don’t want to teach to a test.  I think that I will try to asses by using questions a lot like the ones on the homework but not the ones on the homework assignment.
4. Not being in the classroom while students are doing their BW.  In some of her classes she stays out in the hallway and watches the students do their BW.  I don’t think this fits because I want to be in the class with the students incase of questions and so that the students stay on task
5. Looking for 100% on HW and BW.  This doesn’t fit with me again because I don’t want to single students out.  I also don’t want some of  the students who may get 100% on everything to stick out.
6. In waiting for answers to questions posed my teacher only waits about 1 second.  I don’t think this fits with me because sometimes I need a little more time to sit and think about a question so I want to be able to give my students that oppurtonity.
7. When asking questions to the class my teacher usually only asks them out load.  Some students like me are more of a visual learner and need to see a question.  So I will try to write down every question that I ask on the board or overhead along with asking the question.
8. Giving homework on the days of tests.  I do not agree with this because I think everyone needs a little break from mathematics.  One night of not doing homework is not going to push your place back too much.
9. My teacher usually only calls on the same students.   These are the ones that are usually disruptive or that raise their hand.  I think that all students need to have a chance to answer a question, even the ones that don’t necessarily enjoy answering questions.  I want all of them to be set up for success or scaffold them into the right answer but I want my whole class to participate.
10. The main way my teacher teaches is through lecture, questions and working out problems on the board.  I want to be able to do these things and mix it up a little bit.  I might do this half the time but I want the other half of the time to be done in a different way to reach more learners.