AboutKen Jensen Expertise I can answer questions related to secondary math and science. I specialize in problem based curriculum and instruction.
Experience I am a 20 year veteran Math and Science teacher. I have taught at both the middle and high school levels, and I am currently a Math Coach in the Aurora Public Schools, Aurora Colorado. As a coach, I train other math teachers in the use of research based best instructional practices. I post regularly to the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCSM) list serve as well as to my district's standards based grading website. I was honored with the Colorado Teacher of the Year award by the Colorado Council of Teachers of Mathematics three years ago and have presented at their conference in past years. I particularly enjoy working with parents who question why math is taught so much differently then when they were students.
Organizations Association Of Supervision and Curriculum and Development
National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics
Publications NCSM list serve
CoMath list serve
National Science Teachers Association: The Science Teacher.
Education/Credentials Master of Arts: K-12 interdisciplinary studies. University of Northern Colorado
Adminstrative certificate: Denver University
Awards and Honors CCTM Colorado Teacher of the Year
Past/Present Clients I currently provide professional development both directly and indirectly to 45 high school math teachers, 12 middle school math teachers, and 8 building level adminstrators.
Question 1. What remedial measures would you adopt if the child is weak in your subject to improve him/her
2. What is class control? what acording to you are the way to maintain discipline in the class?
Answer Intervention or remediation must be targeted specifically at the need. Too many times a teacher makes assumptions and misses the need entirely. I believe that the data team process http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?a=2618&q=321744
is the best way to target the specific needs of students. Read through the web site as you can, but the core of data team is collaboratively determining the difference between proficient and partially proficient, finding it in the student responses, and discussing the instructional strategies necessary to overcome the deficiencies.
I suggest two places to look for research based best instructional strategies for math:
1. "Elementary and Middle School Mathematics" by John Van de Walle.
2. "Adding It Up" published by the National Research Council
Where as both of these use math examples throughout the reading, the instruction proposed is appropriate for other disciplines, especially science.
Two years ago my supervisor was asked by a set of principals to work with struggling teachers in their classroom management. He shared the task with me and both of us began an article search to support our efforts. Not surprisingly, every article we found that referred to classroom management and control spoke to the foundational need to develop relationships. Since it is fundamentally difficult to teach someone to be relational, we struggled with the principal's request. However, I have found that Peter Johnston's book, "Choice Words" and Carlo Dweck's work on fixed as opposed to growth mindsets to be very powerful at helping teachers to learn how to relate to their students better. I also believe that these two resources support the work of Van de Walle and the NRC well.
There is no silver bullet for either of these issues. Good luck as you work to implement these ideas. Let me know how it goes.
