Clinical Interview Report

On Friday December 1st, I conducted a clinical interview with two of my neighbors. During this interview I watched as they completed a couple of mathematical tasks. The tasks that they were given consisted of three problems: Marcy’s Dots, Sarah Dots, and David’s Staircase. Throughout these problems, I watched two students attack the problems in different ways, and struggle to understand, but despite their hardship, I watched them rationalize their thoughts in accordance with the skills this task required. These three problems address the Mathematical content standards 7.EE.1, 7.EE.2 and Mathematical practice standards, Problem Solving and reasoning abstractly and quantitatively.

The mathematical content standard 7.EE.1 states that students

I never really thought about the different students that I would encounter. I knew that they all wouldn’t be like Beth, but I never thought of a student that would have a mathematical thought process like James. I know now, that every student approaches problems differently, and it has nothing to do with the way you were raised or how involved their parents are. Granted, there are some circumstances where this does have a factor, but the thought process alone changes from student to student. I enjoyed being able to assist these students in solving the problems when they were stuck, of course without telling them an exact method. I learned a lot about how to ask questions that help students find their own path to the answer. Before I had actually done the interview my thoughts were that guiding questions were not going to help my students find the answers at all. How were they supposed to solve a problem if they don’t know how and I can’t tell them? Well this experience proved me wrong. A student’s mind is very fascinating, it listens to what you say and immediately connects your question with process they’ve used in the past to help them make sense of the problem they’re working on now. If I were given a second chance to work with these students, I would’ve changed the form of the question around a bit for James because this was definitely more difficult for him due to his age. I’m can’t wait to help students in my own classroom in ways that I never thought would actually help, but help more than giving students the answer