As we begin to wrap up our first week of full classes, the program is running smoothly. Both the students and teachers have begun to find a rhythm of learning and teaching, and the general mood of the classroom is one of excitement. Most of the kids are now comfortable with the Khan website, and their learning is progressing faster and faster. As a teacher, I am finding that I am helping less with technology issues and more with actual mathematics. I am beginning to get to know students personally and understand their individual strengths and weaknesses. Just today I had the opportunity to work individually with two students outside of the classroom. I gave Jose practice problems on systems of equations and Erick problems on square roots. Jose continued to practice systems of equations the whole time, but after a few problems it was clear that Erick could move beyond square roots. His peers usually continued on to simplifying radicals, the next topic on Khan Academy. I had seen, however, that many of them struggled with this concept because the Bolivian schools teach square and cube roots before exponents, which made simplifying radicals difficult. Because I had the opportunity to pay more attention to Erick, I decided to go back and teach him exponents. I was excited to teach one on one, and avoid the regular laughter that accompanies my bad Spanish when I try to explain something to a group. Erick was much more polite, and what´s more, he was excited to learn and engaged the math I was teaching. We went through an explanation of exponents and a few practice problems, and Erick picked it up incredibly quickly. After recess, Jose and Erick switched to the computers, and as I´m writing this, Erick is speeding away with exponents. He´s a smart kid and I´m glad that I had the opportunity to pay attention to him and help him with certain concepts that are difficult for his peers who have only been taught in schools with large classes and little personal attention.IP
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