It was very interesting for me to observe how engaged you
all were in doing the various ratio and proportional investigations. Imagine
how much our students would enjoy this type of involvement. Sharon nicely
stated that since in our students’ minds mathematics is paper and pencil
calculations they do not appreciate the beauty and applications that involve
mathematics.
My take away from a day like Sat is to concentrate on how we
can bring experiences like these to our students in the classroom. How can we
help them experience ratio and proportion? How can we use the overhead or
opaque projector to replicate the rabbit, house, and tree exhibit…maybe set up
centers in the room so the students can move among various activities as we
did? We could make a center to enlarge an object as in Gulliver, another to
enlarge a cartoon from the newspaper to poster board size, another to play
around with inverse variation and, of course, one with direct variation.
I would love to read your thoughts on these ideas as well as
your experiences on Sat.
See you on Thursday,
Anne
Context is everything, isn't it? I, as a learner, engage with a problem differently if it dignifies my attention. MCAS is over. One student described a question that he found very frustrating. The problem had no context, no real world application...I am sure that the student would have answered differently if he had a narrative to accompany the problem. I really hope that PARCC will be an assessment that dignifies students' effort by letting them use real-world-problem solving skills. For now, I am more convinced that my students need more practice with real-world problems. Now if our school could have more than 52 minutes of instructional time...
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ReplyDeleteI had a great time at the museum. I enjoyed very much working with Anne and my group at the ratio balance and imbalance exhibit. Anne's interactions with our group and the questions presented provided for some great discussions, and there could have been so many more.
Though I enjoyed thoroughly our experience at the museum I found the Mount Everest exhibit/ problem difficult and wished I was presented the information as a paper/pen problem also. I found myself resorting to the strategies we present and practice with our students.
Like Helen I wish we had more time!!! These interactions and hands on examples are beneficial to our students learning and understanding. I am going to look into asking the shop teacher here to make the three different chairs for deepening our students understanding.
The one station I we had more time to work at was the exhibit I believe was called comparing frequencies where you and a partner use your positioning and speed to create different graphs of the data.
When given the opportunity to choose, I believe that “experiencing” and “exploring” learning experiences are what caring and creative teachers want to offer their students. After all, if we think about our own educational histories, I think we mostly remember these kinds of learning opportunities. For example, I will never forget the ancient Egypt projects I made in sixth grade. In addition, when I think about our experiences at the science museum, I think about how interesting it is that we have basically converted the three dimensional world we live in into a one dimensional world. We present our world to students in this way and expect them to see the abstract connections to mathematics through looking at the world and everything in it as “flat”. These connections are hard to visualize! In looking at things the way they “really are”, I was better able to see and understand the connections between the real world and mathematics. Educators could and would teach students this way given materials, a means to create learning materials and also if given time and less constraints/restrictions that exist due to standardized testing measures. We are and continue to be so limited as long as we continue to teach to the test and get things done-done-done. When getting material presented, done and left behind in order to move on to the next concept is the focus, we’re not able to transition into a more experimental, real world approach. Let’s face it, these types of activities take more time to create and more time deliver than we are allowed. I absolutely see the value in learning through exploration and hands on real experiences, but how are we going to get there? Luckily for those of us who have been exposed to this class, we can start small and build on what we have learned in order to incorporate these kinds of approaches into our daily lessons little by little. I certainly intend to try and make this happen for my own students especially when, as it is, many of them dread and hate school- especially when math is involved.
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What struck me the most at the science museum was that given the opportunity to see the actual items and manipulate them (weights, shadows etc) made understanding the concept so much easier. I was floored by the chairs because I had spent hours on a problem (I have the perserve part of this class down!!) that was really very simple! I agree with the idea that Helene put forth that without context a problem can be uninteresting difficult. It is up to us to implement the activities that engage our students and makes the math relevent!
ReplyDeleteThe museum event was a great experience. The main reason why this class session will never be forgotten is first off because we had class at a museum and actually put our class learnings and applied them to the museum, but also mainly because i have always seen the Science museum as educational but mainly for touring. I had been on a date a few months back and went to the musem and to go with the class and have a complete different insight on every thing was really what stuck with me. "Math is all around us" is an understatement.It was a fun way to take our scale factors and proportional thinking to another level. Trying to figure out how they created a proportional figure to Mt. Everest was amazing and trying to actually figure it out was a headache in itself, which only made my curiousity grow.I think this field trip was a great idea and a even better change of scenerey, it simple shows us the different amount of ways we can teach our lessons
ReplyDeleteSo, Mr. Cunningham: You clearly had a better "date" with your math cohorts than with the other person! Different variables yield different outcomes. To sum things up, you'd rather be with Dr. Collins and us than with anyone else...because we really make a difference in your life! I appreciate your rational thinking! --Helen Son
ReplyDeleteHaha theres no date like a math date. I have to say our class date was way more intense. I would even stand to say that these two events are proportionate, my date was on a smaller scale, like the model of Mt. Everest.
ReplyDeleteWorking on the proportional picture was interesting for me. I missed the intial class where it was introduced and Katie brought me the materials and gave me a quick briefing on what to do. When I started the assignment i thought we only had to make a proportionate figure, so I multiplied every thing by 3 ; which did not fill the entirety of the sheet. After bringing it to class Mrs. Collins showed me where I was wrong and I then drew square that was 6 by 7 each square measuring 4.4 both ways. This made this a completely different ball game and easier. It helped my by giving me an aiming point since I knew what would go in what box.This has been a great tool for me when students see me working on it or I use it as an example of how it relates to simplifying fractions, showing that the pictures are proportionate. When i explain it i noramlly get the "OHHHH" or "WOWW" and the occasional look away. (as too say who cares) But for the students that do respond to it may receive a deeper understanding of proportionate figures.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Katie and I have introduced/revisted the number line in our period class and the majority of kids seem to hate it and say its too much work, while others say its simple. I dont really understand how its hard but maybe they simply dont like it because it's new to them. Of course we told them this will be on future MCAS test so you'll have to deal with it. They claim to like fractions more even though its has many of the same principles when looking for X in the numerator of one fraction while all the other information is given.
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