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| This is me! Blissfully unaware of the math that awaited me |
Thursday, 27 October 2016
Blog #1: It Begins!
Hello! I'm Bernadette and I am a Teacher Candidate at Brock University! I will be using (and have already used) this blog as a tool for my various courses!
I hope this course will teach me how to reduce the negative attitude towards math that I and most students I have encountered share. Math is a terrifying thing to many students and I think the reason for that is that it has a reputation of being something extremely difficult with very little that is applicable to the real world. I hope this course will reduce my fear of failing as a math teacher and allow me to grow an appreciation for how important math is and how it can be made more accessible!
Math Blog #6: Coincidence? I Think Not!
So, on my
last blog post I wrote about my fear of not being able to explain difficult concepts
to students and then in class the next day we talked about ways students can
misunderstand statements, processes, or the "why" behind a math
problem, and the resources we as educators can use to combat these problems!
Coincidence? It is a simple truth that one of the greatest dangers of
teaching math is the temptation to only explain a concept the way you have
understood it and not thinking about other ways to approach problems that might
benefit students with particular learning styles. Teachers may feel
constrained by time, worrying that working too long on one concept will not
leave enough time for another, and have to strive to find a balance between how
they would like to teach and how their curriculum expectations will allow them
to teach. I believe that in this increasingly digital world there will be a
greater need for the kind of problem solving skills you learn in math and that
the attitude that math is boring and useless is shifting each year towards a
more positive practical one. But this shift will only continue if teachers and
teachers to be are dedicated to creating that change.
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| Smith, Dustin. (30th August 2012). Math Quote. [Online Image]. Retrieved from propensityforcuriousity.com. |
I came across a blog last week written by Brie
Finegold, co-organizer of Women Advancing Arizona Mathematics, that had
some interesting things to say on this topic. It was called My
Top Ten Issues in Mathematics Education and while I didn't agree with
everything on the list and some aspects referred more to the American education
system, there are two parts that I think are worth mentioning.
The first is that "Discovering and uncovering
content should take precedence over covering and recovering content."
(Finegold, 2014). While many educators make the case that students benefit most
from building a conceptual understanding of the math, I agree with Ms. Finegold
that talking and talking while students are trying to wrap their heads around a
concept is not very helpful. She gives a link to a list of suggestions
for becoming
invisible for teachers who find it difficult not to phrase and
rephrase things to fill the silence.
The second is that "Mathematics Educators deserve opportunities to further their own content knowledge for teaching." (Finegold, 2014). I think this also applies to teachers in general, but math teachers are rarely given the opportunities to try new, well researched, teaching methods that they believe may make a needed improvement to the education system. Often times a person will teach as they were taught "regardless of whether it was truly effective" (Finegold, 2014).
I think another issue that should be on that list is the use of phrases like "obviously" or "this concept is simple" or "how can you still not understand that?" that are obviously very damaging to a students confidence and perpetuates the negative attitude in mathematics.
Lastly, I would like to say that all three of the presentations this week were prime examples of the kind of creative examples a teacher can use to help explain a concept. All of the presentations were clearly very well researched and each activity brought a unique insight on Rates, Ratios and Proportions.
Thursday, 20 October 2016
Math Blog #5: Fighting Helplessness
Just as I sat down to write out my my post for this week, I realized that most of my posts stem from interactions I have had with my siblings and not with students in a classroom and I should explain that I am not yet in my placement and so the only way I can observe math instruction in action is through the tales my siblings tell of their teachers and the homework they bring back. And so, today when my little sister came home from school and asked me to help her with her math homework I was very eager to assist, but I found that I was not as helpful as I would have hoped I would be. She was doing some sort of patterning work that I hadn't come across before and she didn't have her textbook at home so I couldn't look it up. And I felt this painfully familiar feeling of helplessness creep up my spine. A feeling that I have been having less and less since I started this math course, but still very much present.
Last Friday's class for instance, when we talked about explaining Integers and we were introduced to the soup analogy which is shown in this video:
I loved the idea of this method, it breaks down the concept and gives very helpful visuals. I only had an issue with explaining the Zero Pairs. For example let's say that you had to solve 3-6 = -3. In our exercise in class the professor added three hot cubes (positive) and then added six cold (negative) and six hot to represent the zero pairs you would be pulling the answer form.
Here is where the feeling began to creep back.
I understood how that process worked but I also immediately identified a way that a student could very easily be turned around. With every example that we did we were told that hot and cold cancel each other out. But in this instance that doesn't happen. You take what you need from the negatives and then what is left cancels itself out. But I could easily see a student cancelling out the zero pairs and leaving positive three as their answer, And I was worried that if I student did make this mistake, that I wouldn't be able to help them understand the concept. I think fighting this feeling of self doubt and fear will be my biggest challenge during this course and I fully intend to face it head on. A good teacher is someone who is constantly self improving and self reflecting that is what I strive to embody. I took to the Internet and I found this video above which elaborated on zero pairs in a different way than my professor. So now I will be equipped with two ways of approaching this concept if a student does have a question, and I already sense the helplessness fading.
Last Friday's class for instance, when we talked about explaining Integers and we were introduced to the soup analogy which is shown in this video:
I loved the idea of this method, it breaks down the concept and gives very helpful visuals. I only had an issue with explaining the Zero Pairs. For example let's say that you had to solve 3-6 = -3. In our exercise in class the professor added three hot cubes (positive) and then added six cold (negative) and six hot to represent the zero pairs you would be pulling the answer form.
Here is where the feeling began to creep back.
I understood how that process worked but I also immediately identified a way that a student could very easily be turned around. With every example that we did we were told that hot and cold cancel each other out. But in this instance that doesn't happen. You take what you need from the negatives and then what is left cancels itself out. But I could easily see a student cancelling out the zero pairs and leaving positive three as their answer, And I was worried that if I student did make this mistake, that I wouldn't be able to help them understand the concept. I think fighting this feeling of self doubt and fear will be my biggest challenge during this course and I fully intend to face it head on. A good teacher is someone who is constantly self improving and self reflecting that is what I strive to embody. I took to the Internet and I found this video above which elaborated on zero pairs in a different way than my professor. So now I will be equipped with two ways of approaching this concept if a student does have a question, and I already sense the helplessness fading.
Monday, 17 October 2016
Media Literacy: Developing a Critical Eye
Media, like reading, writing and oral communication, is so deeply
integrated into our daily lives that we don't realize how often we actually
come into contact with it. Films, television, advertisements, images, music, it’s
present in nearly everything we do. When young children start to become exposed
to these different forms of media in larger and larger amounts, parents can’t
be monitoring them all the time and so it is the educator’s job to teach young
students to think critically about the media that surrounds us and analyze its
messages.
In this blog, I want to discuss ads and how they can be an extremely useful
tool for improving a student’s media literacy. I’ve been on an SNL kick
recently and so I’ve been on YouTube more than usual looking up short sketches
to watch during study breaks. I clicked on a promising looking sketch featuring
Emma Stone in an insanely huge wig when an ad started playing. It was one of
those super annoying thirty second ones that you can’t skip. And as I was
forced to listen to middle aged women tell me why I needed to buy a blender I
started thinking about my younger siblings who spend a lot of their time on YouTube,
and I wondered if they were getting the same ads that I was or if for some
reason my watch history had somehow informed YouTube that I might likely be a
middle aged woman in need of a blender. It’s easy to believe that we are all impervious
to ads and that our brains just ignore the messages they are subtlety or not so
subtlety trying to deliver, but the messages conveyed by the media impact us
all and helping young students recognize this fact is a great way to examine
just how media may have shaped the way they perceive the world. Or their understanding of how their gender, culture or ethnicity is often perceived.
TEDxTalks is currently running a spotlight on bold young women who challenge stereotypes and sexist or unrealistic portrayal of females in the media, education and society. Many of these young girls formed their foundational knowledge on what they were capable of from their parents, educators and peers, which serves as a reminder that we all have a part to play in fostering environments that break down these barriers.
TEDxTalks is currently running a spotlight on bold young women who challenge stereotypes and sexist or unrealistic portrayal of females in the media, education and society. Many of these young girls formed their foundational knowledge on what they were capable of from their parents, educators and peers, which serves as a reminder that we all have a part to play in fostering environments that break down these barriers.
A good exercise to open up this kind
of reflective thinking would be to give each student in your class a brand or company whose target audience is the age group of your class, or just young people in general, and ask them look up and choose a couple ads for this brand and write down similarities in the marketing, the
people they see featured in the ads, the people they don’t see, how they are portrayed, how it made them feel, and have them
present their findings in groups and discuss the messages they thought the
companies were trying to convey. As the Ontario Language Curriculum states, it is so
important for students get in the habit of questioning media or any form, breaking
it down and learning to separate myth from fact. Many activities of a
similar nature are being used in classrooms all over the world so students can be equipped with the tools to approach any form of media with a critical eye.
Ministry of
Education. (2006). Ontario Curriculum Grades
1-8. Ontario, Queen’s Printer. Web. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf
Math Blog #3: Resources!
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| Rainbowgram. (14 January, 2015). Penguin. [online image]. Retrieved from rainbowgram.wordpress.com |
Khan Academy
Khan Academy was my savior during summer math course. The videos are easy to understand and if you watch them on the website they come as part of a step by step process to understanding a concept. I have used it countless times since, most recently to help by little sister with percentages!
Inspiring Math Videos
Whether its success stories, new perspectives or simply a deconstruction of a math concept in an interesting way, these videos show the importance of math in our lives:
Brain Crossing
Math Class Needs a Makeover
EduGains
I have used this resources several times for my literacy course and only recently discovered how helpful it can be for math! It provides educational articles, examples of lessons, links to other resources and important mathematics documents.
Math Interactives
This interactive mathematics resource allows students to explore the pictorial, symbolic, and concrete representations of fractions.There are examples of activities you can print, a smoothie game you can play and other fun resources! I also like that it is a Canadian site.
Battleship Jeopardy
AMAZING game created by my professor Rebecca Bunz! It fuses Battleship and Jeopardy to create a super fun integer game!
Math Blog #2: Lord Voldemort
Math Blog #2
Even if I loved math it would be impossible to say that it doesn't have a negative stigma, and since I definitely do not love math, I can truthfully say that I have experienced the negative environment it creates first hand. I like to compare math to Lord Voldemort. The name itself strikes fear into the hearts of all except those who can see it for what it really is: a negative association that you can overcome.
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| James, Bernadette. Meme Generator. (September 21st, 2016). [online image]. Retrieved from https://memegenerator.net/. |
I think a big problem I had with math as a kid was mastering something and then feeling like I never used it again. When we read over the Math Curriculum Grades 1-8 it was very comforting for me to see the continuity of the mathematical strands and expectations. As I become more familiar with the concepts that weave their way through the grades, it will be easier for me to make the connections clearer to the students. For example, common multiples (the concept I am working on for my Learning Activity Presentation) start with whole numbers, then can be used to find the lowest common denominator fractions. It is a good example of proportional reasoning, being able to compare quantities through multiplicative thinking, which in turn is part of the Number Sense and Numeration strand of the Math Curriculum. When you take the time to think about it, it all connects, or at least it should connect, rather neatly. But sometimes it doesn't, as I noticed in my readings.
In Chapters 10 and 11 there are little teaching tips and sections for problems that children often have with the concepts covered that you wouldn't think of. For example, one blurb read that children struggle with "teen" numbers, and sometimes if they hear 17 they will write it as 71. It's been so long since something so simple could have been difficult and I think its challenging for teachers to get back in that head space. I believe teachers who experienced these kind of difficulties will be able to be more patient and understanding, and in doing so, contribute to the creation of a positive math environment.
Ministry of
Education. (2005). Ontario Curriculum Grades
1-8. Ontario, Queen’s Printer. Web. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/math18curr.pdf
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