Weeks 10-11 Reflection

Week 10 was a week I had been looking forward to from the first day of class. We began with the learning activity as usual, but this week was my turn to develop and lead it. Week 10 dealt with probability, which is why I chose it for my activity. Probability is something I have always found interesting and applicable to real life. It is cool, because it is something you can think and theorize about and then simply test and see the results almost instantly. My activity involved a minds-on component which drew on knowledge from the prior grade level (grade 4), while also being open-ended and allowing for many different solutions and answers. The action component focused on expanding into the grade 5 curriculum, while building slowly and sequentially to not introduce and new concepts too quickly.

- My action worksheets.

After my activity, we moved onto the lesson and talked about some of the big ideas for this topic. The lesson focused on, collection and organization of data, data relationships and probability. After some brief review and discussion, we moved through a couple of activities to apply the concepts and practice the use of manipulative's in probability. Following the activities, we reviewed the concepts of mean, median and mode and how they relate to interpreting data and probability. Finishing the lesson, we looked at some games and literature that we could draw on to gain ideas of how to teach and differentiate within the classroom.

Moving to week 11, it was really interesting. We did the makerspace program and got to go into a very open ended session where our creativity and math knowledge were tested. The point of makerspace is to show how useful and beneficial tools and technology can be when try to teach and differentiate math curriculum. The first station that my group and I went to was the 'construction station'. We had popsicle sticks and glue guns and had to think how to relate it to the Ontatrio math curriculum. We came up with the idea of area and perimeter (geometry and measurement) and how you'd need to take that into account when getting the appropriate number of tools to create what you envision. The second station we went to was a ozobots station where we had to draw lines that our little robots could follow. We said that students could relate this probability if you had the robots race or choose a line to follow when multiple were presented. Lastly, we went to the 3-D printer station and were able to make whatever we could imagine. This one was very open ended and could have been related to a number of concepts such as geometry, measurement, angles and much more.


The picture above, provides a link to the makerspace website.

Finishing the lesson, the slide show went over assessment in mathematics, going over topics such as; comprehensive assessment, assessment as/of/for learning, alternative assessment, rubrics and checklists (checkbrics), journal writing for anecdotal evidence, and how to make an appropriate reflection. All of these were very useful concepts as they relate to what we've been learning in our assessment class, but are more tailored towards math specifically.

Weeks 8-9 Reflection

In week 8 we talked about Geometry and spatial sense. We had a great learning activity as we discussed the properties and rules regarding finding area and perimeter. We had a minds on with simple polygons and then moved to finding the perimeter of a house, as well as all of the rooms inside of it. At the beginning of the actual lesson however, we reviewed some of the big ideas in the JI strands; Properties of two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional figures, geometric relationships, location and movement, application of geometric properties in real life. Additionally, we reviewed the 5 levels of Van Hiele's theory, being; Level 0 (recognition), Level 1 (Analysis), Level 2 (Relationships), Level 3 (Deduction), Level 4 (Aximatics). Adding onto these concepts, we then reviewed some terms like; transformations, congruency, similarity, symmetry, as well as different shapes (rectangle, square, diamond, parallelogram, regular pentagon, and trapezoid.
After this, we moved onto 'learning through examples' and tried to figure how many different kinds of triangles we could make with a specific set of lines.

In week 9 we looked at measurement and started out with our learning activity again. In our class presentation, we started with a definition of measurement; "Measurement is the assignment of a number to a characteristic of an object or event, which can be  compared with other objects or events". After that we had a discussion about what might me missing from this definition, as well as the stages in the development of measurement. We first talked about comparison (direct, seriation, indirect), Non-standard (quantification, constant unit), and standard SI-units. From this point, it was a good way to transition into the benefits and importance behind using the metric system. The metric system is simple to use as there is only one type of measurement for each type of quantity, and there are only a few base units. After these clarifications, we moved onto teaching through problem solving; here we talked about estimation in regards to measuring the length of the rooms. This gave us a good look into the importance of having an idea of the relative size of objects and the space around you. From here we moved into the concept of visualization as well as experience. All of these aspects are very important when trying to estimate area and perimeter because they all build onto each other and will make understanding the concepts more palatable.

In conclusion, the two weeks were very good as they built on each other nicely. We also had our focus shift outside of class, as we were tasked with selecting two games from our games forums to review and make a presentation about. This was interesting as it allowed us to recall past units and concepts as well as obtaining a perspective about the games from each group member. As a group, we decided on space race multiplication as well as dirt bike proportions. These two games were both very pleasing aesthetically as well as very easy to play, and extremely relevant to the course curriculum. Another large factor for these games, came down to the ability to either play them single player or with friends. We feel like this is important, because similar to our 'learning through examples', as we bounce our ideas off group members and have conversations, it creates more engagement in the content.

Weeks 6-7 reflection

Weeks 6 and 7 were a little tougher than the previous 2 weeks. the content was great and was explained very well, but it is always tough to come back from reading week! I have to say however, that it is bothering me how some of my classmates seem to be losing patience recently and get overwhelmed without trying the content. There were a couple cases in class during the past couple of weeks where students were not initially understanding ratios and proportions and let their emotions get the better of them. They would almost come into the lesson with a closed mindset and began taking it out on the instructor. I just wanted to start off this reflection with stating that the instruction has been very good, the content has not been too difficult and I think some people need to take a step back and try to understand and hear concepts out, before freaking out over the difficulty.

Week 6 was a very interesting week! We started out, as always with our group learning activity, which was very engaging. Our leader for the week, Mike, was very thoughtful and engaging in his activity. He had us looking at ratios and proportions and made it relevant to the Halloween through Harry Potter and potions. Mike started out the activity by explaining the overall and specific expectations for grade 4, as well as giving us a base potion. He said the potion fed 3 people and asked us to figure out the ingredients needed to feed 1 person and then 9 people. We then went into the lesson and talked about the overall expectations more in depth. Them being;
- Demonstrate an understanding of proportional reasoning by investigating whole number unit rates. (grade 4)
- Demonstrate an understanding of proportional reasoning by investigating whole number rates. (grade 5)
- Demonstrate an understanding of relationships involving percent ratio and unit rate. (grade 6)
- Demonstrate an understanding of proportional relationships using percent ratio and rate. (grade 7)
- Solve problems by using proportional reasoning in a variety of meaningful contexts. (grade 8)
After this, we spent the rest of class doing many different examples with our groups and then shared the answers and strategies with the class.

retrieved from: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Silent-Teacher-Poster-Ratios-and-Proportions-2017093

Week 7 was a fun week and started off with an amazing group learning activity. This week we learned about patterning and algebra. The activity included a minds on component of looking at number patterns and then moving into the core activity of patterning with shapes and colours. After the activity we went over strategies to help students problem solve when trying to figure out patterns. We talked about concepts like investigation and extending and how/when to apply these concepts. Moving forward we talked about the Ontario curriculum expectations for patterning and algebra;
- Describe, extend and create a variety of numeric and geometric patterns, make predictions related to patterns and investigate repeating patterns involving reflections. (grade 4)
- Relationship in growing and shrinking patterns involving translations. Understand use of variables in expressions. (grade 5)
- Use variables in simple algebraic expressions and equations to describe relationships. (grade 6)
- Represent linear growing patterns using concrete materials, graphs and algebraic expressions. (grade 7)
- Represent linear growing patterns using concrete graphs, algebraic expressions and equations. (grade 8)
Once again, we then spent the remainder of class, building on these concepts and using manipulative's to express our understanding (my favourite part, as I always learn a new way to teach and explain myself).


Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No4VLQLrdr0