I thought I'd take some time to talk in detail about the curriculum side of my student teaching. I am now working exclusively in 8th grade math. It is more time consuming than I thought it would be, as I have to completely prepare my lesson's EVERYDAY from scratch. We are not teaching from a book for the rest of the year. We are filling in some holes in the curriculum. So I was told we are teaching equations for 3 weeks and handed a stack of 15 worksheets. I also really have to prepare TWO lessons each day as the two classes are not capable of working at the same pace. I've had to do review on basic operations like dealing with negative integers and converting mixed numbers into improper fractions and dividing fractions.

My MT is somewhat annoyed that these kids don't have these skills down yet. I, however, GET IT. This has always been my problem with math. "Use it or lose it" Why would they remember a skill they haven't used in 6 months? I've also heard that you need to hear something 15 times before you "get it" and file it away in the permanent memory bank. Unlike other subjects, in math each new concept can use many previous skills and if you're missing ONE skill you're stuck. That was always why I felt like a failure...

I'm going to begin having an entry task for the students each day; they will work on basic skills. I think that type of thing is a necessity with any math curriculum. My MT has been very flexible and supportive, but we definitely have different philosophies on this issue. He is like "they don't know it, it's only my job to review these skills and we have to move forward in the curriculum", so he isn't taking the time to re-teach these skills. I believe there is no use in blowing through the curriculum if they have holes. So I'm taking a few days and re-teaching these basic concepts.
So... for the next 3 weeks I'm trying to finish up the academic side of my education, and also planning all these lessons. I will say that this is providing a great experience, just not something I would want to do every day all year long.