Taylor Boles

Mrs. Lester

Advanced Grammar and Composition

12 March 2012

Senior Speech

Have you ever had a teacher who encouraged you to follow your dreams, no matter how

many people told you not to become your dream job? Personally, when my grandmother passed

away, when I was eleven, two teenage boys came to her funeral and asked to speak to the family.

They explained to us that my grandmother had a great impact on their lives, and they remember

she always encouraged them to follow their dreams. Growing up, I always wanted to become a

teacher, but I was told that I shouldn’t become a teacher because teachers do not get paid

enough. When this happened, I decided that I wanted to become a teacher so I could be an

influence similar to my grandmother, no matter everybody else’s opinion. I also decided money

did not matter as much as touching the lives of children. Only recently have I decided to

specialize in math, and my inspiration comes from a previous math teacher, Mrs. Dicks. My

research paper is on the topic of the math teacher shortage. The shortage of math teachers makes

the career field appealing because the shortage has opened up spots for new teachers to come in

to the career. I decided to do my research paper on the topic of the shortage because I feel as if

people do not realize that there is a shortage. A section of my research paper is about being

prepared for the career, and I thought that the product of a lesson plan and lesson would be away

of preparing for the career. Now I am going to tell you about the process I followed in creating

my lesson plan and lesson.

My facilitator is Alysia Dicks, who is my inspiration for becoming a math teacher. When

looking for a facilitator, I was looking for someone who cared for her students and someone who

I knew would be helpful. Since she was my inspiration, I thought who would be better than the

person who encouraged me to become a math teacher or at the time professor. Mrs. Dicks went

to the University of Georgia, where she received a Bachelor’s of Business Administration. Then,

she went to Kennesaw State University, where she received a Master’s of Arts in Secondary

Math Education. Before she became a teacher, she was s Systems Engineer at the Home Depot

Store Support Center. Then, she became a stay at home mom, and after she decided to become a

math teacher. She is a qualified facilitator because she knows the job, and was able to help me

learn from the start like she started. My facilitator helped me with the steps in the process in

creating my product. The process is how my product was created. First, I met with my facilitator

to create a meeting schedule. The problem was that I could not meet in the mornings, and Mrs.

Dicks could not meet in the afternoon because she goes home to be with her children. The

problem of when we were going to meet emerged. In order to fix our problem, from October 24,

2011 to January 4, 2012 I ate lunch in Mrs. Dicks’ class room and we worked together on our

lunch hour. Second, I met with Mrs. Norris, the teacher whose class I taught, to find out what

subject she wanted me to teach. Next, I started researching other teacher’s lesson plans on my

subject to get an idea of where to start when making my lesson. Then, I started working on my

lesson. I used the text book that the class normally uses, to get the majority of my information

that was included in my lesson. Then, I learned how to make copies because I decided to copy

the section out of the book and whole punch the copies, and I placed the copies in my notebook

where I was keeping all my work. Then, I started working on finishing my lesson. When I

finished, I showed it to Mrs. Norris to make sure it was what she wanted her class to learn. A

problem occurred, and the problem was that I made my lesson on the wrong subject. The

solution was to start over. The good news is that my research was still usable, so I created a new

lesson. Beginning with the new copies, I made new copies of the correct information. Then, I

started my lesson on Smart Notebook. I practiced working on the Smart Board, so I could learn

how it worked. When I finished my lesson, I started practicing teaching in front of a few students

and Mrs. Dicks. Then, I fixed the problems Mrs. Dicks told me she taught should be changed.

Then, I practiced teaching in Mrs. Norris’ room, and taught in front of her. She helped me fix a

few mistakes. Then, I set up my camera in her room. Finally, I taught her second period

freshman math class. The process of creating my lesson has really taught me about how hard it is

to be a teacher, and how hard it is to create a lesson plan.

In conclusion, my senior project has taught me more than just how to be a teacher, but

about myself. Through this project, I have learned that I procrastinate on little things when I

should just do everything in order. I have also learned that my organization skills have increased.

My communication skills have increased during this project because I had to speak to adults and

not sound nervous. So, through this process my confidence in my ability to talk to adults has

strongly increased. I am going to become a high school math teacher. A future career might be to

become a college professor. Something I have learned from my senior project is that I will want

to teach old students than freshman. I will be attending North Georgia College and State

University, where I plan on pursuing a degree in Math Secondary Education. Thank you for your

time. Are there any questions?