Growth Mindset
For this weeks weekly work, I focused on growth mindset, and what i can do as a future teacher to instill this mindset in my students. To start out I watched this TED talk about growth mindset: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN34FNbOKXc In it the speaker shows us the many benefits to growth mindset as opposed to fixed mindset. In this post I will talk about ways I plan to teach, and instill a growth mindset in my students.
These two pictures demonstrate the main differences between growth and fixed mindsets. The biggest difference is that a growth mindset allows intelligence to grow and be developed, whereas a fixed mindset is stagnant, not allowing a child to grow in intelligence. What surprised me from the video is that in a study, children with a fixed mindset actually saw grades lower over a 2 year period, rather than just stay the same. Growth mindset children, however, saw a steady increase in grades. Also children with a growth mindset have a desire to learn, and therefore they will continue throughout there life, regardless of the challenges. Fixed mindset children only want to look smart as the end result, leading to a tendency to avoid challenges and lose interest in anything that requires effort. Fixed mindset children will choose easy tasks that do not benefit them intellectually, but make them look good, whereas growth mindset children will tackle more challenging subjects which takes a lot of effort but will benefit them greatly when they eventually master it.
As a teacher it is crucial that I instill a growth mindset in all of my students. Growth mindset is directly tied to success in life. Why teach children facts and processes and critical thinking, without giving them the foundation they need for success? The Youtube video gave me some ideas and I also have some ideas of my own.
1. Do not praise the end result, or grade, but instead praise the process by which it was achieved. Fixed mindset children only care about what grade they are getting and their self esteem is wrapped up in that grade. If they don't do good that is because they were stupid, and a loser. As the speaker said in the video, instead of saying "That is good work, you must be really smart", instead say "That is good work, you must have worked really hard on it." By praising the process you are showing the child that the process, no matter how hard it is, or how much they struggled with it, is the important aspect, not the grade they receive at the end.
2. To teach children about growth mindset, show them that intelligence can be increased. Teach them the processes that can give them a growth mindset, things such as challenging themselves can improve their abilities, that abilities are not static. Show kids that no one ever achieved anything by being born smart. Einstein did not do so great in school, but he is regarded as one of the most brilliant men in history. That is because all great men and women put forth effort, and work towards their goals for years, continuously developing their talents into something great.
3. When I am a teacher, I plan to challenge my students and grade them not on the result that i get, but on the process that they show me. Obviously this doesn't apply to all subjects, but where it applies i intend to use it. I plan to make it clear to my students that grades are not what makes you intelligent, and the best way to do that is to lower the significance that grades have on performance. Good grades does not make a student smart, and lower grades do not make a kid stupid. By getting rid of the stigma of grading as much as possible i hope to point my students in the direction of a growth mindset.
1. Do not praise the end result, or grade, but instead praise the process by which it was achieved. Fixed mindset children only care about what grade they are getting and their self esteem is wrapped up in that grade. If they don't do good that is because they were stupid, and a loser. As the speaker said in the video, instead of saying "That is good work, you must be really smart", instead say "That is good work, you must have worked really hard on it." By praising the process you are showing the child that the process, no matter how hard it is, or how much they struggled with it, is the important aspect, not the grade they receive at the end.
2. To teach children about growth mindset, show them that intelligence can be increased. Teach them the processes that can give them a growth mindset, things such as challenging themselves can improve their abilities, that abilities are not static. Show kids that no one ever achieved anything by being born smart. Einstein did not do so great in school, but he is regarded as one of the most brilliant men in history. That is because all great men and women put forth effort, and work towards their goals for years, continuously developing their talents into something great.
3. When I am a teacher, I plan to challenge my students and grade them not on the result that i get, but on the process that they show me. Obviously this doesn't apply to all subjects, but where it applies i intend to use it. I plan to make it clear to my students that grades are not what makes you intelligent, and the best way to do that is to lower the significance that grades have on performance. Good grades does not make a student smart, and lower grades do not make a kid stupid. By getting rid of the stigma of grading as much as possible i hope to point my students in the direction of a growth mindset.
Obviously i have a long way to go before i am fully prepared to teach kids about growth mindset, but i feel like i have a good basis, and i fully intend to be well versed in it by the time i get my own class room. Any feedback is appreciated.
SET
For this weeks creative work I decided to teach one of my nephews (joel) how to play set using the online set game at www.setgame.come/set/daily_puzzle.
I forgot to bring my camera so unfortunately i do not have any pictures of him playing but it went pretty well none the less. Honestly after he got started he was better at it than i was, even though he is only in 6th grade. I set him up on a computer, and i used my ipad and in 10 minutes we compared to see who had the most sets. He beat me by one, which i suppose means i taught him well, but still made me feel pretty sheepish. After we got done i asked him to explain his method to finding sets. He told me first, he looked for things that were different, and found all the sets he could doing that, and after he couldn't find anymore, he went back and looked for things that were the same. He had a lot more struggles with that part, he told me. For the final part of the "lesson" i had him write up a list of instructions that he would use to teach a friend how to play the game of set. His instructions were basically simplified instructions for the game itself, and i was very impressed by how well he grasped them and put them into words. We worked together for about an hour and a half, and by the time we were done, i'm sure he could play the game much better than me!
I forgot to bring my camera so unfortunately i do not have any pictures of him playing but it went pretty well none the less. Honestly after he got started he was better at it than i was, even though he is only in 6th grade. I set him up on a computer, and i used my ipad and in 10 minutes we compared to see who had the most sets. He beat me by one, which i suppose means i taught him well, but still made me feel pretty sheepish. After we got done i asked him to explain his method to finding sets. He told me first, he looked for things that were different, and found all the sets he could doing that, and after he couldn't find anymore, he went back and looked for things that were the same. He had a lot more struggles with that part, he told me. For the final part of the "lesson" i had him write up a list of instructions that he would use to teach a friend how to play the game of set. His instructions were basically simplified instructions for the game itself, and i was very impressed by how well he grasped them and put them into words. We worked together for about an hour and a half, and by the time we were done, i'm sure he could play the game much better than me!
Teaching Quads
For the weekly work I thought about how I would teach children about the different types of quadrilaterals. i decided that telling the children about quadrilaterals and then showing them pictures would be ineffective. I decided to do it more like prof. Golden. I drew up this example sheet.
I thought i would give each kid 3 or 4 sheets like similar to this one. Each sheet would have them identify different types of quadrilaterals. So for this sheet they would find all the rhombuses, on another sheet, all the quadrilaterals, on another all the trapezoids and so on. I would let them choose how to identify. They could color them in, or cut them out, or circle them, just as long as they try to identify them.
After all the kids are done with their identifying, i would put them in groups and see if they could figure out why they identified certain shapes as what they did. Even if they were completely wrong, i want them to try to figure it out from scratch before i jump in. After all the kids had discussed, i would join in the discussion and show them what was right and what was wrong and then teach them the specifics. And that is how i would teach quadrilaterals. Some days later i would give the kids the same sheets to see if they did better than the original sheets given them at the beginning of the lesson.
After all the kids are done with their identifying, i would put them in groups and see if they could figure out why they identified certain shapes as what they did. Even if they were completely wrong, i want them to try to figure it out from scratch before i jump in. After all the kids had discussed, i would join in the discussion and show them what was right and what was wrong and then teach them the specifics. And that is how i would teach quadrilaterals. Some days later i would give the kids the same sheets to see if they did better than the original sheets given them at the beginning of the lesson.
Finding the Area of a Triangle
This week's weekly work is based of of an activity that i found in a math activities book Hands on Math by Frances M. Thompson.
The activity i chose combines what we talked about with triangles and area of a rectangle. Through the activity children can learn how to find the area of a triangle. 1. First the kids will need a geoboard, with two rubber bands. This is what mine looks like.
My geoboard is literally 40 years old so some of the nails are bent and its not perfect but it still works well enough.
2. The teacher shows the students different right triangles and acute triangle where at least one side coincides with a row of pegs on the geoboard. A row of pegs runs parallel to an edge of the geoboard. The students then build the triangles on their geoboard. I chose to use these two.
For each triangle have the children find a rectangle that encloses the triangle so hat at least one side of the rectangle coincides with, and is congruent to the side of the triangle that is along the row of pegs. Each vertex of the triangle should lie on a side or vertex of the rectangle. For example:
Students can then find the area (in geoboard square units) of the triangle based off the rectangle. For example the right triangle's area is equal to the rectangles are divided in half. The rectangle is 3 units x 4 units=12 units squared. The triangle's area is 12 units squared/2=6 units squared.
The other triangle is slightly more difficult. The rectangle is a 5x4 rectangle. First the student should split the rectangle in half to make two rectangles and two right triangles from the original triangle. This gives you two 5x2 rectangles. From there you can get the area of the 2 right triangles. (5x2)/2=5 units squared so the original triangle is the sum of the two right triangles=10 units squared. From here you can challenge the students (depending on age level) if there is a simpler way to find the area of a non-right, acute triangle. Students should be able to figure out that all triangles are half the area of their coinciding rectangles.
The other triangle is slightly more difficult. The rectangle is a 5x4 rectangle. First the student should split the rectangle in half to make two rectangles and two right triangles from the original triangle. This gives you two 5x2 rectangles. From there you can get the area of the 2 right triangles. (5x2)/2=5 units squared so the original triangle is the sum of the two right triangles=10 units squared. From here you can challenge the students (depending on age level) if there is a simpler way to find the area of a non-right, acute triangle. Students should be able to figure out that all triangles are half the area of their coinciding rectangles.
Glyph Activity
For this week's work i tried to put together a fun activity to get kids involved with making glyphs. I decided to put together a activity for kids to play throughout the school year that would incorporate glyphs and getting to know your classmates. The class would do the same thing we did in our MTH 221 class, coming up with categories and symbols to represent them. Once that is decided every child will put together their own glyph. The glyphs would be hung up around the room. As the year progresses and the children get to know eachother they can take index cards, or post it notes with names on them and try to match the names with the proper glyph. At the end of the year, once everyone has been guessed correctly, the teacher can do a survey of the categories and find out what the majority of students like from each categories and put together a glyph that represents the class personality as a whole.
Statistical Analysis of my Library
For this weeks weekly work, I decided to work with mean, median, and mode, using as my data the page numbers from the books that I personally own, not including textbooks. This is the data that I collected:
J.R.R Tolkien
-The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (all in one book)-1008 pages
-The Hobbit-305 pages
Anne DeVries: The Journey through the Night Series
-Into the Darkness-213 pages
-The Darkness Deepens-216 pages
-Dawn's Early Light-231 pages
-A New Day-213 pages
George R.R. Martin
-Game of Thrones-807 pages
-A Clash of Kings-969 pages
-A Storm of Swords-1128 pages
-A Feast of Crows-976 pages
-A Dance with Dragons-959 pages
Robert Ludlum
-The Bourne Identity-535 pages
-The Bourne Supremacy-597 pages
-The Bourne Ultimatum-662 pages
-The Tristan Betrayal-521 pages
-The Prometheus Deception-509 pages
Dan Brown
-Deception Point-558 pages
-Digital Fortress-430 pages
-Angels and Demons-569 pages
-The DaVinci Code-454 pages
-The Lost Symbol-509 pages
Tom Clancy
-The Hunt for Red October-387 pages
-Patriot Games-503 pages
-The Cardinal of the Kremlin-543 pages
-Clear and Present Danger-656 pages
-The Sum of all Fears-914 pages
-Without Remorse-639 pages
-Debt of Honor-766 pages
-Executive Order-874 pages
-Rainbow Six-740 pages
-The Bear and the Dragon-1028 pages
-The Teeth of the Tiger-431 pages
Dale Brown
-The Tin Man-367 pages
-Fatal Terrain-448 pages
-Storming Heaven-399 pages
Random Authors
-D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor-523 pages
-Great Battles of World War II by Dr. Chris Mann-237 pages
-In the Company of Heroes by Chief Warrant Officer 4 (RET) Michael J. Durant-361 pages
-The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Vorhees-189 pages
-What President Killed a Man by James Humes-225 pages
-Vietnam: The Necessary War by Michael Lind-284 pages
-The Most Evil Dictators in History by Shelley Klein-190 pages
-American History by Kenneth C. Davis-214 pages
-King Arthur and his Knights by Sir James Knowles-383 pages
So that is the data of page numbers from my personal library. I have a total of 44 books in my library. As you can see, the range extends from 189 pages (The Book of Totally Useless Information) to 1128 pages (A Storm of Swords) with a pretty decent spread in the middle. The total number of pages in my personal library is 23,710 pages. Divide that by 44 (the total number of books) and that will give me my mean (average) number of pages which is (rounded to the nearest page) 539 pages.
The mode of this data is 213, and 509, both occurring in two books. Those are the only 2 numbers that repeat.
The median number of pages for this data set is 509. Since we have an even number of data points we need to use the two middle numbers for find the median. The 22, and 23rd number of the data set is 509, the average therefore is obviously 509. There are 21 books with smaller page numbers than 509, and 21 books with page numbers larger than 509.
Looking at this data, if someone was to ask me about how many pages does the average book in your library have I think I would answer them with a range, saying "about 500 to 540" which is about the median to the mean. I think that gives the best representation of my books because it is a number that is pretty much right in the center of my data. There are books with double that amount of pages and books with half that amount of pages, but overall I think that range is fairly accurate.
J.R.R Tolkien
-The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (all in one book)-1008 pages
-The Hobbit-305 pages
Anne DeVries: The Journey through the Night Series
-Into the Darkness-213 pages
-The Darkness Deepens-216 pages
-Dawn's Early Light-231 pages
-A New Day-213 pages
George R.R. Martin
-Game of Thrones-807 pages
-A Clash of Kings-969 pages
-A Storm of Swords-1128 pages
-A Feast of Crows-976 pages
-A Dance with Dragons-959 pages
Robert Ludlum
-The Bourne Identity-535 pages
-The Bourne Supremacy-597 pages
-The Bourne Ultimatum-662 pages
-The Tristan Betrayal-521 pages
-The Prometheus Deception-509 pages
Dan Brown
-Deception Point-558 pages
-Digital Fortress-430 pages
-Angels and Demons-569 pages
-The DaVinci Code-454 pages
-The Lost Symbol-509 pages
Tom Clancy
-The Hunt for Red October-387 pages
-Patriot Games-503 pages
-The Cardinal of the Kremlin-543 pages
-Clear and Present Danger-656 pages
-The Sum of all Fears-914 pages
-Without Remorse-639 pages
-Debt of Honor-766 pages
-Executive Order-874 pages
-Rainbow Six-740 pages
-The Bear and the Dragon-1028 pages
-The Teeth of the Tiger-431 pages
Dale Brown
-The Tin Man-367 pages
-Fatal Terrain-448 pages
-Storming Heaven-399 pages
Random Authors
-D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor-523 pages
-Great Battles of World War II by Dr. Chris Mann-237 pages
-In the Company of Heroes by Chief Warrant Officer 4 (RET) Michael J. Durant-361 pages
-The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Vorhees-189 pages
-What President Killed a Man by James Humes-225 pages
-Vietnam: The Necessary War by Michael Lind-284 pages
-The Most Evil Dictators in History by Shelley Klein-190 pages
-American History by Kenneth C. Davis-214 pages
-King Arthur and his Knights by Sir James Knowles-383 pages
So that is the data of page numbers from my personal library. I have a total of 44 books in my library. As you can see, the range extends from 189 pages (The Book of Totally Useless Information) to 1128 pages (A Storm of Swords) with a pretty decent spread in the middle. The total number of pages in my personal library is 23,710 pages. Divide that by 44 (the total number of books) and that will give me my mean (average) number of pages which is (rounded to the nearest page) 539 pages.
The mode of this data is 213, and 509, both occurring in two books. Those are the only 2 numbers that repeat.
The median number of pages for this data set is 509. Since we have an even number of data points we need to use the two middle numbers for find the median. The 22, and 23rd number of the data set is 509, the average therefore is obviously 509. There are 21 books with smaller page numbers than 509, and 21 books with page numbers larger than 509.
Looking at this data, if someone was to ask me about how many pages does the average book in your library have I think I would answer them with a range, saying "about 500 to 540" which is about the median to the mean. I think that gives the best representation of my books because it is a number that is pretty much right in the center of my data. There are books with double that amount of pages and books with half that amount of pages, but overall I think that range is fairly accurate.
Journal of Family Math Night
Family Math Night is coming up in 2 weeks, so I thought I would write up a blog post about how our group is coming along for this week's weekly work. I was missing the first couple days we discussed it, but I joined Christiana and Eddie and they got me up to speed. We decided to do a game based off of Brewster's Millions. Basically we have prices with made up prices and they have to estimate how much a certain number of them would cost.
When we first came up with the idea we weren't quite sure how to implement it. Eddie came up with the idea and the group thought it was a good one, so we started brainstorming. Originally we were going to have the kids "buy" candy with monopoly money, but it was pointed out to us that candy was a bad idea because we have no clue if some of these kids are diabetic, or gluten free or anything. So we settle on little prizes from the dollar store. Originally the idea was to give the kids a set amount of fake money, have them tell us what they wanted and then have them estimate the price in their head, and if they got within 50 cents of the correct price, then they got to keep all their prizes. After discussing that we decided they could pick one prize, to keep our costs lower.
When we went to White Pines Middle school to test our games we tweaked some things. First we did not give the kids monopoly money. Instead of putting a limit on how much they could spend, they could just pretend they had unlimited money, and that way kids that were able to estimate better were not limited by this limit on how much they could get. Also we did not make them do it all in their head. Eddie bought erasers, pencils and harmonicas. The kids picked how much of each they wanted, and then estimated the price of individual items in their head, but we let them add the three numbers up to get their final price. If they got within 50 cents they got a prize, which was not originally planned but we figured it would get them to come back on FMN. What we had the kids do was right down how many erasers, pencils, and harmonicas they wanted, then right down their estimated price for total number of erasers, pencils, and harmonicas and then add them up to get their total prices.
Some things that we will do differently at FMN than at White Pines:
For one thing we will be more organized. The items that are available to be "bought" will be lined up neatly with the prices very clearly displayed.
We need to be a bit quicker in our instructions. I'm not sure how much time we will have at FMN but at White Pines 7 minutes was barely enough, so if we can cut down on us talking that will help.
The 5th graders suggested that we have a different set of prices for the same items that we will use for the younger grades, because they thought that would be easier for them to estimate. Christiana, Eddie, and I thought that was a pretty good idea.
So that's where our group is with FMN. Overall we think its a great game to get kids involved with math, and show them how they use math in every day life, and we think, with the tweaks in place, it will be a big hit at Family Math Night.
When we first came up with the idea we weren't quite sure how to implement it. Eddie came up with the idea and the group thought it was a good one, so we started brainstorming. Originally we were going to have the kids "buy" candy with monopoly money, but it was pointed out to us that candy was a bad idea because we have no clue if some of these kids are diabetic, or gluten free or anything. So we settle on little prizes from the dollar store. Originally the idea was to give the kids a set amount of fake money, have them tell us what they wanted and then have them estimate the price in their head, and if they got within 50 cents of the correct price, then they got to keep all their prizes. After discussing that we decided they could pick one prize, to keep our costs lower.
When we went to White Pines Middle school to test our games we tweaked some things. First we did not give the kids monopoly money. Instead of putting a limit on how much they could spend, they could just pretend they had unlimited money, and that way kids that were able to estimate better were not limited by this limit on how much they could get. Also we did not make them do it all in their head. Eddie bought erasers, pencils and harmonicas. The kids picked how much of each they wanted, and then estimated the price of individual items in their head, but we let them add the three numbers up to get their final price. If they got within 50 cents they got a prize, which was not originally planned but we figured it would get them to come back on FMN. What we had the kids do was right down how many erasers, pencils, and harmonicas they wanted, then right down their estimated price for total number of erasers, pencils, and harmonicas and then add them up to get their total prices.
Some things that we will do differently at FMN than at White Pines:
For one thing we will be more organized. The items that are available to be "bought" will be lined up neatly with the prices very clearly displayed.
We need to be a bit quicker in our instructions. I'm not sure how much time we will have at FMN but at White Pines 7 minutes was barely enough, so if we can cut down on us talking that will help.
The 5th graders suggested that we have a different set of prices for the same items that we will use for the younger grades, because they thought that would be easier for them to estimate. Christiana, Eddie, and I thought that was a pretty good idea.
So that's where our group is with FMN. Overall we think its a great game to get kids involved with math, and show them how they use math in every day life, and we think, with the tweaks in place, it will be a big hit at Family Math Night.
Area of rooms
For this weekly work, i went back a little bit and decided to do some math that has to do with area. I measured the bedrooms in our house (4 of them, one converted to an office) to determine which bedroom has the most area, and thus would be best for a messy person like me with alot of stuff (even though i won't be changing rooms). Also i will try to determine, based on my parents belief that our house is about 2200 square feet, what percentage of the area of this house is taken up by bedrooms.
My Bedroom=11' 6" by 10' 10" for a total area of about 124.6 square feet
Master Bedroom=12' 4" by 13' 3" for a total area of about 163.4 square feet
Bedroom converted to an office= 12' 7" by 11' 6" for a total area of about 144.7 square feet
Spare Bedroom=11' 5" by 13' for a total area of about 148.4 square feet
As you can see my room is by far the smallest (that comes as no surprise to me) and the master bedroom is the largest by area (also not surprising). Adding up the square footage of the bedrooms gives us the total square footage of all of them which is 581.1 square feet. Now, assuming that our house is 2200 square feet like my father believes than bedrooms take up about only 26.4% of the total area of this house.
My Bedroom=11' 6" by 10' 10" for a total area of about 124.6 square feet
Master Bedroom=12' 4" by 13' 3" for a total area of about 163.4 square feet
Bedroom converted to an office= 12' 7" by 11' 6" for a total area of about 144.7 square feet
Spare Bedroom=11' 5" by 13' for a total area of about 148.4 square feet
As you can see my room is by far the smallest (that comes as no surprise to me) and the master bedroom is the largest by area (also not surprising). Adding up the square footage of the bedrooms gives us the total square footage of all of them which is 581.1 square feet. Now, assuming that our house is 2200 square feet like my father believes than bedrooms take up about only 26.4% of the total area of this house.
Family Math Night Part 1
Christiana was nice enough to do the first blog post for our group. http://christianapauline.weebly.com/mth-221.html
Family Math Night Reflection
Well, family math night did not go as well as we were all hoping. Not sure what the problem was, but clearly parents didn't put forth the effort to get out and do some math with their kids, which is extremely disappointing. I would have loved to see a bunch of kids there for multiple reasons, some selfish, some not. For one, I think its important that kids do math in the context of having fun so it would have been nice to see more there. Another reason not seeing kids there was disappointing is that it robs the kids of this chance to learn which is always tough to swallow. And lastly it was disappointing to see hardly anyone show up because we put a lot of work into this Family Math Night and it would have gone really well, and all are work was really for nothing.
That being said, family math night was not totally without merit, especially since we did the beta testing two weeks, and a week in advance. FMN was really helpful for the GV students because in a way it really showed us how we have to teach math to the next generation. Teaching math is not easy. But teaching math to a generation that already hates math is mission impossible. Fortunately, Tom Cruise has taught us that mission impossible can be accomplished. FMN made it clear that children are totally open to math if its fun. Not all math has to be fun, but if we get away from traditional demonstrate and practice teaching methods and then grade kids on how well they do then maybe kids won't hate math so much. We need to teach math in the context of group work, real world application, and then maybe children will start seeing that math does not deserve the bad rap its been getting. Engaging children in new ways will increase learning and make all our students little mathematicians.
FMN also made it clear that teachers have to be flexible and able to plan on the fly. Sometimes things don't go the way the teacher planned and if that's the case the teacher has to change the lesson on the spot so that it benefits the children the best. Our group had to do that a little in the beta testing phase, by changing our prices so that the kids would estimate better and not just add, but it was most apparent at FMN itself. Our group was prepared mostly for older children, 3rd grade and up. However, when we got to FMN all the children that came to our station were really young, kindergarten and below. So we literally had to change our game on the fly completely so that it was applicable and doable for these young kids.
Family Math Night was a bit of a disappointment, but things could have been worse. We could not have learned anything.
That being said, family math night was not totally without merit, especially since we did the beta testing two weeks, and a week in advance. FMN was really helpful for the GV students because in a way it really showed us how we have to teach math to the next generation. Teaching math is not easy. But teaching math to a generation that already hates math is mission impossible. Fortunately, Tom Cruise has taught us that mission impossible can be accomplished. FMN made it clear that children are totally open to math if its fun. Not all math has to be fun, but if we get away from traditional demonstrate and practice teaching methods and then grade kids on how well they do then maybe kids won't hate math so much. We need to teach math in the context of group work, real world application, and then maybe children will start seeing that math does not deserve the bad rap its been getting. Engaging children in new ways will increase learning and make all our students little mathematicians.
FMN also made it clear that teachers have to be flexible and able to plan on the fly. Sometimes things don't go the way the teacher planned and if that's the case the teacher has to change the lesson on the spot so that it benefits the children the best. Our group had to do that a little in the beta testing phase, by changing our prices so that the kids would estimate better and not just add, but it was most apparent at FMN itself. Our group was prepared mostly for older children, 3rd grade and up. However, when we got to FMN all the children that came to our station were really young, kindergarten and below. So we literally had to change our game on the fly completely so that it was applicable and doable for these young kids.
Family Math Night was a bit of a disappointment, but things could have been worse. We could not have learned anything.
Volume
As a teacher I am looking for interesting ways to teach math, mostly because i hated math as a student. I hated the teaching showing us and then we do book problems until the class is done and then we do the rest at home. It's not wonder I was a terrible math student. This is not how i will teach math. Instead of teaching my students that volume is lengthXwidthXheight and then giving them a bunch of problems to work on, I want to teach them through hands on activities that might actually make them enjoy math and learn it better. Throughout the semester i have been using a book called "Hands On Activities" for math students. This is one of the games i plan to use in my classroom to teach the concept of volume.
This activity is called Volume Victories. Children are split up into teams of 4. Each team is given 75 cubes and one die. The roll the die twice. The first roll gives them the ten digit, the second roll the ones digit. For example if they roll a two and a four then that is equal to 24. They then count out the number of cubes equal to their dice rolls. After they have counted out the cubes, they must then arrange the cubes into a prism. Along with that they must write a number sentence that applies to their prism, in the form of L x W x H. The point is to use they cubes to make as many different prisms and number sentences as possible with the number of cubes they determined could be used through the rolling of dice. Each different prism and applicable number sentence counts as one point.
I think this game is helpful for a number of reasons. One, it teaches kids the concept of volume, but not in the traditional way, therefore kids are more likely to enjoy it and remember it. Two, teaching math concepts in ways such as this make kids enjoy math more and makes them more open to new concepts of math in the future, instead of always dreading the next days instructions. Hopefully through teaching like this, my students will not suffer the same fate as i did when it comes to learning math.
This activity is called Volume Victories. Children are split up into teams of 4. Each team is given 75 cubes and one die. The roll the die twice. The first roll gives them the ten digit, the second roll the ones digit. For example if they roll a two and a four then that is equal to 24. They then count out the number of cubes equal to their dice rolls. After they have counted out the cubes, they must then arrange the cubes into a prism. Along with that they must write a number sentence that applies to their prism, in the form of L x W x H. The point is to use they cubes to make as many different prisms and number sentences as possible with the number of cubes they determined could be used through the rolling of dice. Each different prism and applicable number sentence counts as one point.
I think this game is helpful for a number of reasons. One, it teaches kids the concept of volume, but not in the traditional way, therefore kids are more likely to enjoy it and remember it. Two, teaching math concepts in ways such as this make kids enjoy math more and makes them more open to new concepts of math in the future, instead of always dreading the next days instructions. Hopefully through teaching like this, my students will not suffer the same fate as i did when it comes to learning math.
Reflection of MTH 221-14th and final blog post
Well the semester is finally coming to a close. At the end of the semester, it's always good to look back at your classes and determine what you got from your classes, or whether you were just wasting your time. In the case of MTH 221 i can definitely say i was not wasting my time. The concepts i learned from this class will be invaluable as a teacher. For one thing, we re-learned a bunch of concepts that i will be called upon to teach in an elementary classroom, and that i was seriously rusty on so now, after this class, i feel much more confident in teaching them. Also in the way that this class was managed it had the feel of an elementary classroom (not the maturity level mind you) and that gave me a better indication of what i was getting into, which was extremely beneficial. However I think the most beneficial part of this class was the philosophy of Prof. Golden. From taking this class, my philosophy has been revolutionized. No longer will i be giving homework in my classroom, my classroom will be much more kid-choice friendly as much as possible, and i am strongly considering not giving tests in my classroom but instead moving towards Standard Based Grading. And that change in philosophy i'm sure will work out better for my students and for me as a teacher. So thank you to Prof. Golden and to all of my MTH 221 classmates for an extremely enriching and helpful semester.