Mathematics Teaching Degree WGU -in progress!

[teacher2]

Took my last Praxis Core test today. It was a writing test so will have to wait for scores to come in roughly two-three weeks. The test had 40 multiple choice questions to be answered in 40 minutes and two essays -an argumentative and explanatory both to be answered in 30 minutes a piece. The multiple choice section wasn't too bad. Roughly 35% of the multiple choice questions were the type where you identify the error in the sentence, 35% you select the best choice to rewrite a section of sentence. I had one long passage with about 5 questions asking for in-text revision, vocabulary meaning,  best way to end paragraph, and main idea of the passage. The remainder of the test were basic research and citation questions. However, I have heard that there are 6 questions on the test that they don't grade. I am not sure if that rumor is valid or not!
         As far as the essays... I feel that I will get a 4 on the first and a 1 or a 2 on the explanatory. I am not very good at writing under time constraints! The argumentative was a relatively easy prompt for me as it pertained to my thoughts on whether colleges should require all students to take a core set of courses. The second had to do with texting in public settings. I do not think I did very well on this one. I basically got a bare skeleton of a essay written out and I was already at 5:00 minutes left on the clock.

I need a 162 to pass this test in my state. I wish I had spent more time preparing for the essays in this test. The essays were much harder than CLEP English Comp because in this test you only get 30 minutes instead of 45 in the English Comp. Writing wise, you have 30 minutes less than the CLEP English Comp.

I would highly recommend studying the following:
Comma splices
Subject-verb agreements
Semi-colons and Colons
Basic Research and citation rules
Revising sentences to give the clearest message-VERY IMPORTANT

I used my CLEP English Composition tests to prepare for this test. I also flipped through my English book from highschool. We will see if this was enough in a couple weeks! Till then, I am sorely tempted to take the weekend off, even though I need to revise Math History and Tech Task 1 and 2.

UPDATE:

I passed the exam! I got a scaled score of 170 with 24/34 on the multiple choice and 14/24 on the writing.  I am elated as this means the last obstacle that would have prevented me from taking my PreClinical Observation course is overcome!
 
Whoever reads my ramblings must know by now I am one to find the odds against me on a test. I looked up other peoples scores and reviews of this test and here is the data I compiled. 

Multiple Choice    Essay      Raw Score    Scaled score
       11                  12              23               150
       16                  14              30               152
       20                  12              32               152
       18                  14              32               158
       20                  14              34               158
       24                  14              38               170
       24                  17              41               174
       28                  19              47               184

[teacher2]

Completed Math History and Technology today! Going into this class I thought it would be a piece of cake like Math Learning and Teaching. Well... I was a little over confident. I got dinged twice for articulation on Task 1. For everyone's benefit, when you get in trouble for articulation, your work goes through a second evaluation which can take (and did take) up to 72 hours. The first time I was supposed to, but did not, prove a geometry theorem using Geogebra . I just proved some properties about the geometric shape I had created. The second ding I do not even know why it happened. Even the articulation evaluators and the course mentor could not figure out why I was dinged. But in any case the course was relatively... moderate in difficulty

This course has 4 performance tasks.
Task 1 you use Geometry and Computer Algebra Software to solve problems. Then you must create a problem with the Geometry Software and prove a theorem. This should have been too easy!
Task 2 you had to write a lesson plan that is CENTERED around technology. This one will not pass if it is not all about tech. Also do not use calculators as student-centered tech they don't qualify in the 21st century as tech! I guess cause they were invented in the 20th century.
Task 3 you have to fill a Graphic Organizer with math history dates, events, and how that branch of math could be interesting to your students. E.g Combinatorics use in Game programs. Also, you have to write several essays on an infamous historical math problem.
Task 4 required writing a lesson plan that incorporated math history and your methods had to be backed by 2 peer-review journals.

Really this course wasn't too bad. I think that the Instructional Planning and Presentation in Mathematics really prepares you to write detailed lesson plans quickly. Task 3 was probably the longest and hardest as I chose a math problem I wasn't really familiar with. The course took roughly a week of 8 hour study days. I was enrolled for two weeks but the first week I was doing Praxis tests. But I am relieved. My First Term at WGU ends on October 31. I intend to finish my last two courses before then. I am hoping to get Intro to PreClinical Experience done in the next two weeks but evaluations are taking awhile. I submitted Task 1 and 2 today and they are 184 in cue to evaluation. So we will see.

[teacher2]

Finished Intro to PreClinical Experiences today! Now, I am down to PreClinical Experiences which I start observations in-school tomorrow. But anyhow the Intro to PreClinical Experiences class was a very informative prep class for what I will be doing tomorrow. In this class you had to observe and reflect on 40 videos of a Atlas Video Teaching Program. There are four tasks and you have to fill out a video form for each task. Basically you would watch the videos, read the teacher commentary and follow the directions on the writing prompt for the task. Also you had to describe your teaching philosophy as it related to the task writing prompts -e.g academic discourse, classroom management strategies etc. The difficult points on this task are time, evaluation wait time, and properly submitting the video log. Per task you are required to to spend a minimum of 10 hours viewing and reflecting on ten videos -40 hours/40 videos. Each video is anywhere from 15-30 minutes long, but most are 15 minutes thus I made up the extra time writing. The evaluation time was roughly 4-5 days from the time I submitted each task -having a task 217 in cue is not funny!
Lastly, I had GREAT difficulty getting the video log correctly submitted. The video log would be complete as viewed in word document but on Taskstream it would distort the information. I had several tasks sent back due to this. I finally was able to resolve it but apparently this happens a lot with this task. You have to shrink the video log organizer and set your word document to print form not landscape form. This was pretty discouraging after waiting 5 days to find out that I would have to wait another 5 in order for them to even evaluate it.

Tips for the course:
Use the teacher commentary to help you write your reflections. Pre-reading the commentary helps give you the idea of what is happening in the video and it helps you to analyze it. Also, the teacher's commentary can help you narrow down whether the video will fit the writing prompt. E.g writing about exceptional ed students in the general ed classroom (this is a example not the actual requirements).
Check your submission after you have sent it into to Taskstream to make sure the video log is not scrambled. If you don't you will have to wait double time like I did.
Attend the cohorts and send your task to the course mentors! I did not do this on most of the other courses but it really helped me efficiently go through this class. I also found that you need to be very explicit in the reflections and make sure your observation clearly aligns with the writing prompt. State your conclusion about the observation at the beginning.
Don't get weary with all the writing! I am convinced WGU is turning me into a writer! This class seems daunting with the time requirement but I was able to knock out the tasks in a week. It took two weeks total because of the video logs. If you buckle down and organize your time efficiently, it can be tackled in less time than I took.

Note: With these task submissions you will have over 30% matching in your plagiarism report from Taskstream. I had tasks with 68-82% matching but none of my writing prompt work was matching . The reason it is so high is because you have to submit the video log form. Because of this, they will not knock your task out for being over the 30% limit.

[teacher2]

Hey Everyone! I passed my last WGU class for the year!!! I made my goal of completing all my courses besides student teaching in one term!!! That and in the nick of time as I only have 3 days left to my term.

So here is my experience in the Pre-Clinical Experiences course. In this course you do not have any required reading, cohorts, or other instructional material. The class has one performance task which is composed of multiple facets. In my task, I had to answer a number of specific writing prompts about my observations as well as reflect on those observations. Also I had to include the following:

Observation Log
Active Engagement Log
Teacher Interview Form
Teacher and Students Observation Form
Field Notes (This is what your writing prompts and Reflection essay is based on)

In total, my task submission was 72 pages long. I was in this class for 26 days of which 10 days I was observing a 7-8th grade math classroom in a local school. Fall break landed after my first week of observations so it gave me plenty of time to write about my observations up to that point.

In order to do my PCE class, I contacted the board of education in my area and met with the director who secured a placement for me. If you already have connections established in a local school, then you probably could contact them. The private school I had volunteered and subbed at a year ago had shut down and I am a homeschooled student so I had virtually no connections.

`In any case, this class requires you to observe 60hrs (if you were enrolled before 8/17) or 75 hours (if you enrolled after 8/17). I completed 60.38 observation hours and 24.5 active engagement hours. Because of my limited time frame to get this class done, I was there at the school observing math classes from 7:45am-3:00pm. Not all of those hours counted as observation hours. I could include all math classroom and instructional planning hours but lunch break, morning breaks, or other activities could not be counted. Also even if the school is holding a afterschool program such as reading, WGU will not count this toward your hours because it falls outside of "school hours" . However, the funny thing is if a morning break falls during a class period ( The teacher begins lesson, then takes students for morning break, then comes back in and resumes lesson) you can include that time in your observation hours! Do not list it separately but add it to the time of the class period that it occurred in. This will make sense if you take this class!

Also, every observation MUST be a minimum of 45 minutes or they will not count it toward your hours. They provide a loop-hole to this requirement if you were actively engaged in assisting the students/teacher. If you are actively engaged it does not matter if you were only helping for ten minutes, they will count it.

How difficult was the class? It was more on the difficult side due to the many components and requirements. I felt completely useless the first couple of days as all I was doing was watching the class and taking notes. Sitting for 6 hours a day feels like eternity! After the teacher got comfortable with me being there, I was allowed to assist the students, teach lessons, and help grade papers. The next hardest thing was figuring out what hours counted. I am usually very independent when I work on WGU courses, but seeing as this was a class I could not go back and re-observe, I emailed my course mentor frequently to check if I had these hours right. My task was actually sent back for revision because I had excluded a morning break which meant part of the lesson I observed was 15 minutes long. They would not count this toward my hours till I changed the log to make my minutes consecutive.

For the teacher interview, I recommend not asking all the questions WGU requires you to ask in one sitting! I asked the questions one or two at a time during lunch hour, break, and the instructional planning period.

Lastly, for the reflection essay, be sure that your writing includes not just what happened but WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE. When I talked with the course mentor, she told me that many times the task gets sent back because people merely repeat what happened. The reflection Essay has multiple components but they give you a checklist of areas you are supposed to observe which will help you write this. Use this checklist to guide your field notes and observations which will help you write the essay.

This task was the largest and most complicated I have taken through WGU up to this point. I highly recommend working with the course mentors as they are your best resource on this one. Not to mention, they are your only resource!

[DavidHume]

Wow! Congratulations!

[jsd]

great job!!

[afiabanks]

Congratulations!!

[cathgrl]

Bravo! Do you have a student teaching assignment lined up yet?

[teacher2]

Thank you everybody! These last few days have been wonderfully spent with my family.

To answer your question, cathgrl, I still do not have a student placement as of tonight. I have till November 15 to get a placement or I will not be able to student teach in January. I have contacted 5 schools in my area as well as my county board of education explaining my situation. I must admit securing your own placement is not very easy when you do not have an already established relationship with that school. Some of the schools in my area require WGU to negotiate a student teaching placement. I emailed the field placement specialist about this, but she said since I was entering so late, any school that required the university to place them would not be an option. Fortunately, two of them have said they will work with me given the circumstances and will try to get a placement for me. I am currently waiting to hear back from them. I will update this thread as soon as new data comes in!

[teacher2]

I thought I would go ahead and give an update on school placement. Today is the deadline for submitting a late entry appeal to WGU. I had to have a school placement in by 5:00 pm CST.

So in regards to the schools that said they would work with me, I had to acquire approval from the assistant director of the county school system. I contacted her, but ended up having to have field placement office send her the necessary documents. I have been waiting for a reply all week. I called to follow up today but I forgot that many of the schools are observing Veterans day a day early. Thus the assistant director is not in the office.

At this point, I felt pretty close to throwing in the towel. I emailed my student mentor and asked to began the withdrawal. She called me and said she went ahead and submitted the late entry appeal even though I do not have placement in hand just yet. She said that due to the Veterans Day observance today and the assistant director out of the office, she believes placement may be just around the corner on Monday. At this point, I do not have a no from the late entry appeals office or the district I have contacted. She thought we should wait till I can get an answer from the assistant director on Monday.

I am so relived! I wish I had contacted the assistant director yesterday but I had got an email from field placement saying not to contact the district further because they did not want students to damage WGU's placement relationships with that district. I was not aware of this so I clarified this with my student mentor this morning and she advised me to contact her back as I had already began the placement process.