My name is Jordan Black and I am in my fifth year of Concurrent Education at Brock University. My teachable subjects are Mathematics and Geography, but I hope to eventually earn my third teachable in History. A few things about me outside of education; I am from Grimsby, ON so I am definitely a small town girl at heart. I love being active and working out, in fact I have been a dancer since the age of three.
I have created this blog to reflect on my time in Teacher's College and eventually on my career as a teacher. I think that reflection is a great way to learn and grow. And I look forward to what this year has in store. The name of my blog is two-fold; Algo-rhythm has a dual meaning. Algorithm as in my mathematics background but also algo-RHYTHM as in my passion and love for all things related to dance. I have been both a student and a teacher of dance throughout the years. I will absolutely be incorporating dance into my classroom one way or another.
Hi Jordan,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post! You make great connections between the skyscraper activity completed in class and how we can apply similar activities in our own classrooms. I agree with the points you make about the benefits of offering students open-ended questions. After reading your post, it promoted me to think about using open-ended questions across all streams and ability levels in math (locally developed to academic). These questions are designed in such a way that all students can achieve success as there is no one correct way to achieve the final answer. In a class where there is a gap between student ability, students can simply keep going with the activity (without reaching a sense of “boredom”). Similar to your own experiences, I found relevance when completing activities where I was in control of my learning. I think this is extremely important for maintaining student engagement and building confidence. Once students become invested in their learning, they are more inclined to achieving success. I look forward to further exploring this topic throughout the duration of this course. Great job!
Rachelle
Hi Jordan,
ReplyDeleteI found your post very relatable for two reasons. Reason one is that I am also a teacher candidate whose teachable subjects are mathematics and geography and I am also from Grimsby. I am not sure what the odds of that happening are but I would have to think that it is not very common. Reason two has to do with how we viewed the skyscraper assignment. I also think it was beneficial for us to figure out a solution on our own. I think that as a class we learned more form the experience because we were given vague instructions and we had to use problem solving skills to figure out a solution than if we were given very detailed instructions. I think as a class we all learned the value of problem solving and how much a student can benefit from problem solving activities. Like you, I also want to incorporate activities like these into my future classes with the hopes that my students benefit from them as we did in class.
Jodi!
Hi Jordan,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post! I love the title of your blog as well, it is punny and adds a personal element to it which makes it reader friendly and enjoyable. In regards to the skyscraper activity, you made a good point about how self-learning is extremely valuable in the classroom because it allows the students to come to the answer in their own unique way. I believe in the education field this relates to the Socratic method, where the teacher asks loaded questions in order for the student to come to the answer on their own. More importantly, it sparks a sense of curiosity among the students and what better way to learn then when you are intrinsically motivated and curious to know the answer? Similarly to what you said about incorporating dancing into the classroom, I too want to move away from the traditional classroom and bring in ideas from outside that will motivate my future students and keep them engaged in class. I hope you will find creative ways to bring in your passion, dance, into your classroom as well as getting them to learn through self discovery.
I look forward to reading more of your posts,
Bevan