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Final Week

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Over the last 6 weeks, I have come not only to appreciate but fully agree with the new philosophy of teaching math to make it rich and meaningful for our students. I thought it did make sense to teach math using this approach but I was still on the fence about adopting this mentality as I was comfortable with the traditional method of teaching math and it worked for me as a student. However, as the world has changed and continues to change at breakneck speed, I now believe that it is imperative that our teaching methodology evolves accordingly. Today’s teaching cannot be not a one-size fits all approach that stresses memorization. Students should not be passive recipients of information that is delivered through an authority model.                                               Source:  http://bit.ly/2P4qJhh I learned that differentiation is something that we must incorporate in our teaching. While the lecture style approach may work for some students, there ar
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How to look at Math Problems and Tech in the Class

Welcome back to my blog! How to look at a math problem This week, we covered intuition and thinking like a mathematician. Math is so much more than plugging a number into a formula. We need to understand math problems and be able to explain and justify our thinking in words instead of a formula. What does that formula really tell us? We need to know how to apply our mathematical thinking in other settings, so a formula is not always going to help out especially when dealing with something new or unknown. Too often, we give up too soon. Even brilliant people, such as Sebastian Thrun, an accomplished inventor and Google executive, admitted to taking weeks to be develop an intuitive understanding of a math concept. I also liked his comment about taking away the fear of math in our students. The struggle and frustration experienced by students is actually an excellent indicator of brain growth and learning. Drawing in Math In his blog, Ryan discussed the pencil as
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Rich Math Tasks

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Let’s face it -teaching is a demanding profession. A lot is expected of us. We need to cover a lot of material and differentiate to reach every student. This week’s discussion regarding rich tasks really made sense to me as this approach really benefits both teachers and students. At first, I thought it seemed kind of complicated. We, as teachers, should weave other subjects such as language, science, art and social science as we teach math. Math is all around us and we need to incorporate this wide-angle lens approach. It’s not the easiest thing to do and it’s truly best done with other teachers, but I really believe that with time and practice, it will become much easier! It is also a much more efficient way to teach as you are combining content and skills in two or more subjects, which enables students to meet expectations in multiple subjects within a lesson or task. Math and the world around us Math is an important part of our everyday life, not just something le
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Week 3: Everyone is a math person

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Welcome back to my blog! I just loved the discussion that we had in class about everyone being a mathematician! We are all using mathematical concepts when we use numbers in our everyday lives. We are all Mathematicians Being a math person is not due to some superior genes. In fact, it was surprising to learn that many great mathematicians are quite slow in terms of the time it takes them to solve a problem. Instead of just zipping through a problem, they study it thoroughly, taking their time to examine the problem from all angles.  Source: https://binged.it/2zxntBP So, some may still like math more than others - some may have a good early exposure to numbers when they were young, but regardless, everyone can do math and it is never too late to start! Check out this awesome video about getting over the math mental block!                                                   Source: https://youtu.be/tg0Z--pmPog Mistakes are wonderful! I
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Week 2: The "Problem" with Math

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The Problem with Math What is a problem? Just the word has a negative connotation. You think of something that causes distress. Problems usually are uncomfortable. Some people procrastinate and don’t want to deal with the problem right away. We have to change our mindset about math “problems” – perhaps we should use words such as “question,” “challenge,” or even “riddle” instead of the word “problem.” Students must believe that they are “math people” and that they are capable of learning math. Have a look at this inspiring article about how a teacher empowers inter city students to free their minds and to keep asking questions until they truly understand the concepts - http://bit.ly/2O1Xjze So, what is the issue? Dan Meyer’s video “The Math Makeover” provided an excellent analysis of the current state of most math classrooms as students:       -        Lack initiative -        Lack perseverance -        Lack retention -        Hav
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