Hi everyone!
I hope everyone had a great week, I know for myself school work is starting to pick up and I am feeling like I am a lot busier.
This week in class we started with an activity in which we were put into groups of 4 or 5. Each person was given either a word or a number. As groups we were instructed to make a sentence using all the words or numbers that we were given. The sentence was suppose to tell the rest of the class something about our group. My group was given the following words;
almost,
percent,
40, and
80. After a short discussion and brainstorming session my group came up with the following sentence: "
Almost 80 percent of our group is blonde and
40 divided by 10 is the amount of people in the group". Kinda lengthy, but it got the job done.
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I really enjoyed this activity as an 'ice-breaker' because it got us thinking creatively as a group. I could absolutely see myself using this in my classroom. I think it would be a great way to get students to make connections between the different mathematical concepts that are being discussed in class. This activity also gets students up and out of their seats. This is important especially in mathematics classes because traditionally students in these classes are asked to sit the entire time. This can be very problematic for students who identify as kinesthetic learners. As stated in the article,
Move Your Body, Grow Your Brain, by getting students up and moving encourages them to be more focused and less distracted during class time and in their learning.
In addition, we also talked about manipulatives and how they can be incorporated into the classroom. We were provided with four different activities they we could use in our own classrooms. The activity that stood out to me the most was the activity using pennies, chocolate and candy. Now initially this activity caught my eye because of the sweets that were involved. But after reading through the activity, I tried it out and really enjoyed it. I could really see how a student who is very visual could benefit from this activity.
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One thing that I realized as I was reflecting on my experiences with maniplulatives was that sometimes they worked for me and sometimes they did not. For example, as a Grade 10 student I remember using algebra tiles and absolutely hating them. They just didn't help me learn, because I was able to understand by just looking at the numbers and equations. But despite this negative experience, I was able to realize it is important to provide maniplulatives as an optional resource for students. Each student does not necessarily have to use the maniplulatives but by providing them to students, I will be giving them the opportunity to learning in their own way. Which is extremely important. I know that not every student I teach will share my love and passion for mathematics. But if I can make mathematics even just a little more enjoyable for my students, I believe that I will have succeeded as a teacher.
Hey Jordan!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post this week. I like how you discussed both the ice-breaker activity at the beginning of class and the topic of using manipulatives. After completing the ice-breaker activity, I began to think about how I would use this in my own classroom. I believe this type of activity would be a great diagnostic tool to determine students’ prior knowledge and current level of learning. As we discussed in class, this type of activity is open-ended. Our class demonstrated that open-ended activities allow students the opportunity to freely use their creativity and there was “less pressure” because we were not worried about producing one single correct answer. I really like how you mentioned the fact this activity provides students with the opportunity to move around in the classroom. My first teachable is Physical Education and thus I have thought in depth about how I will incorporate aspects of kinesthetic learning in my classroom. This week for my blog, I chose to focus on manipulatives. Similar to yourself, I also had both positive and negative experiences using manipulatives, however, I also had very limited opportunities to use manipulatives. During high school, many of my teachers in the academic stream would always say “you don't need those.” Personally, I am a visual learner and I wish I had more opportunities to use concrete objects. I like the point you mentioned about providing manipulatives for all students to foster self-discovery and learning in their own preferred way. Considering my own educational experiences and the new knowledge I have developed from this course, I will definitely be using manipulatives in my classroom. I look forward to continue reading about your mathematical thoughts throughout the duration of this course! Great post,
Rachelle
Hey Jordan!
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to comment and respond to your closing thoughts! You mentioned how it is important to use manipulatives in the classroom and how beneficial they can be. You suggested that you will provide them to all students to ensure they can each learn in their own way. To me this is a brilliant way to introduce them to a high school classroom. My teachers always placed them at the front of the room and allowed you to utilize them if you felt the need to. This placed the responsibility on the student and often made us feel like the centre of attention if we wanted to use them. Providing all students with them will ensure they explore them and will use them if they find them helpful, without feeling like the odd one out.
I Enjoyed reading your post!
Mr. Moore