My Weekly Report and Reflection #3:

      This week, within the modules I found myself answering questions regarding the speed of students answering questions, and if that is related to their performance. We also reviewed videos on mistakes, and how that making mistakes actually expands students brain capacity. This concept had to be refined because just making mistakes on your own is not going to expand any students brain capacity. The student needs to struggle with the problem in order for any growth to occur, firing off synapses expanding their brain capacity.

Retrieved from: https://bhi61nm2cr3mkdgk1dtaov18-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/synapse.jpg , on September 27, 2016

     Some things that I learned this week were how to effectively use mental math in order to answer quick questions. This skill really reinforced my previous knowledge and made me struggle with certain problems. I was reminded of the previous modules about how the process of struggling with math problems actually helps your brain make connections. During this exercise, I often found myself struggling and frustrated with the problem however, I stuck with the problems and I eventually figured them out after a lot of struggling  

Heartwell, 2016

       As a future educator, I found the booklets given below, were very effective at consolidating the previous questions. This booklet below (done in pairs) is an extremely effective way  at getting students to explore patterns within a fun multiplication way. This booklet also would be a great way to pair up students that were struggling with the concepts with students who were efficient at answering these problems.  

Heartwell, 2016

     Overall, I enjoyed the different task that Dr. Khan assigned us within class, because it got our minds thinking, and encouraged group work. Within a math class, one of the most difficult tasks to do is engage the whole class with a task that intrigues the students, making math meaningful. This task can be augmented in order for groups of students to work on these problems as a race to finish all of the tasks within the booklet. These students can learn the same information, however with peer help and from a different view point, the teacher can differentiate this task very easily for different types of learners. This can be done by having stations, based off of the difficulty of the booklets, and the level of the students learning. Summing up this week, I had a lot of Ah-ha moments, and a lot of challenging moments as well, being tested intellectually. I will have to take some of these exercises and use them within my upcoming teaching placements. 

Resources:

Mathematics: The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1-8. Toronto, ON: Ministry of Education and Training,        

       1997. Print. 

My Weekly Report and Reflection #2:

     In this week's math class I found myself revisiting old concepts, going over teaching strategies, and struggling with the repetitive nature of mathematics. I often found myself within class frustrated with repeating old concepts and the tedious tasks that were assigned such as the "what finger does 1000 land on, if you start from your thumb" and the "whats greater, 5/10 or 6/10". These tasks are very taxing on not only the students, but also us as pre-service teachers. For a quick glimpse into "the life of a student", I found these tasks very taxing and repetitive. The 5/10 or 6/10 task should have been demonstrated as starting out small and gradually making the task more complex, instead of starting out complex and confusing everyone. Just like the students in the classes we teach, pre-service teachers also need a gradual introduction to these concepts, instead of a "this is how it is done" approach. Within my placement, I was in charge of this unit for my grade 5/6 class and I got to experience this progression first hand. Switching from the different concepts often confuses the students, and loses the interest of the students very quickly. This is one thing that I reflected back on this session, reflecting on what instructional models and teaching methods I will use within my upcoming placement.

     I now know that a gradual introduction is needed for this unit, for my students to be fully engaged within the tasks I assign them. One of the lessons that I got to be a part of within my first year of teachers college was a number line made out of cards, done by one of my colleagues. She used the face value of a deck of cards to visually show how a number line works, and how it can be adapted to show fractions. If there were 9 people in a line, the person with a 9 number would go to one end, where the person with a 1 number would go to the beginning of the line. This demonstration could be adapted to show 9/9 is 100% or 1.0 and 1/9 is 0.11 and how those numbers relate to the number line. This demonstration will be useful for the visual learners within my class, and get my students fully engaged within the lesson. 

     The most challenging part of the week for me was trying to understand and wrap my head around the problem below and the rotational problem. This problem had me stumped for the longest time, until I finally figured out how to do it all by my self. With the rotational problem, I did not know how to wrap my head around the "missing owl" problem. This problem was very effective because it got students visualizing rotations and got the students thinking. We were then given connecting blocks and asked to visually create the problem, which was very effective for myself, not only as an instructional tool, but it catered to the visual and kinaesthetic learners. This activity coincided with the grade 5/6 curriculum, using three-dimensional models, and learning the different rotational properties such as (flip, slide, rotate, translate, and reflect), Geometry and Spatial Sense strand (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2005).

Heartwell, 2016

     During our class last week, I had a difficult time enjoying it however, as I reflect throughout this blog, it was very useful for me. I got to reflect on the learning experiences I have had in the past and see which ones would be the most useful for the type of teacher that I want to be. I definitely felt more confident in my abilities as a math teacher after this week.

Resources:

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2005). The Ontario curriculum grades 1‐8: Mathematics .          Retrieved September 16, 2016, from  http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/math18curr.pdf.

My Weekly Report & Reflection 1

     Hello everyone, I'd like to welcome you to my first blog post about the pre-service mathematics course within my second year of consecutive education at Brock University. The purpose of this post is to self-reflect on the many concepts I will be learning within this math class. Reflecting on these concepts will help myself become a more critical and reflective teacher. In our first class, we went through the discovery method when it came to the curriculum document and curriculum expectations.

      Within the first class our class was directed to sort printed squares with sections of the course curriculum on them. The strand that my group was in charge of was number sense and numeration. By the end of this class I still had a poor understanding of what this strand entails. "Number Sense and Numeration refers to a general understanding of numbers and operation as well as the ability to apply this understanding in a flexible way to make mathematical judgements and to develop useful strategies for problem solving" (The Ontario Curriculum - Mathematics, 2005). I had a general understanding of what this strand was, but the relevance of this compared to the class task was still unknown.

(Heartwell, 2016)

     After doing the gallery walk I found where our strand fit into the class task. I saw how each strand fit into the overall math curriculum. This task was extremely memorable for me as I reflect back on this first class. This class brought to life the different strands within the Math curriculum and made me see how everything fits together. It was an extremely useful task for pre-service teachers to manipulate the different strands according to the application of different cards. 

     The thing that I noticed this week that was useful was reflecting on not only the videos that we were assigned, but reflecting on the class activities as well. This made me realize the bigger picture of the course, because the assignments we had to do was extremely overwhelming. These forums and blog post were the most overwhelming part of the week. For the first class the amount of forums and reflections we needed to do was extremely taxing. 

     The forums were extremely useful to watch and reflect on, regarding math myths, brain growth, because I agreed with most of the things that were said. One math myth that I agreed with was that "there is no such thing as being a math person", because at times I do believe that there is a certain type of person that can answer math questions. I believed in this specifically when I was taking first year calculus. I tried my best to do the required documents and math questions, and I ended up with a terrible mark in the end. In the end I definitely believed that there are certain "math people" who are able to understand complex math problems. 

     In the end, as a math teacher I need to believe in a growth mindset so that my students will believe that they can achieve anything they set their mind to. Math is definitely a complex subject to understand, and requires the correct instruction and patience to understand it. At the end of the day as a teacher, I will learn from my students and they will learn from me.  

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

Resources:

Ministry of Education. (n.d.). Retrieved September 14, 2016, from        http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/math18curr