My Journey through Education

Textbook 1. Explain what it means to measure something. Does your explanation  work equally well for length, area, weight, volume, and time? To measure something means.... to see how big or small something is by using tools such as a tape measure, measuring cup, etc. I feel as though the way I explained it only shows the length and area. To measure time you would need a clock or to count how many seconds. The volume you could measure by putting certain items in a container and seeing how many fit. And to measure weight you would use some type of scale 3. Four reasons were offered for using nonstandard units  instead of stand units in instructional activities . Which of these seem most important to you, and why? I think the most important is "Nonstandard units make it easier to focus directly on the attribute being measured." I think this is the most important because it students need to understand what it means to measure something before the get confused with all the ...

Measurement Misconceptions Why do you think the students are having difficultly? I think the students are having difficulty because measurement with rulers might be something they have never done before. When we do something new for the first time without any instruction we most of the time do it wrong.  What misunderstanding are they demonstrating? The misunderstanding they are demonstrating is how to correctly use a ruler. Some students don't know how to use a ruler and don't know you have to start at the 0 mark. Some don't understand what the marks on a ruler mean. And some students just want to guess. Have you witnessed any students experiencing some of these same difficulties? I haven't had the change of working with students on measurement in my field experience so no I have not witnessed this. What types of activities could you implement that would help these children?  I would try to find online resources like videos or games that would help the student...

Coordinate Grids The websites that I explored were:  Gregs Grid Graphs- I thought this site was a good one. It has the student first figure out the coordinates by matching the letters to the coordinates. The it shows the points with letters and the students need to write out the coordinate. One thing I notices though is that it states that the coordinates are written with parentheses but when the site has you write out the coordinates it doesn't allow enough typing to do so. This could confuse students in the long run and not use parentheses.  Stock the Shelves- I think students would think this is a fun game to play. It makes you be completely accurate on clicking your points, if you are even a little bit in the box and not on the center of the 2 lines it counts it wrong. This is something that students could do to practice to make sure they are understanding where coordinates are. This also includes negative coordinates so it would probably be better for students wh...

Pentomino Activities Before going on the website to do this activities I thought they were going to be super easy. Boy was I wrong. It took me multiple tries to figure out 1 way to get them to work on the easy level. I tried multiple times for a good 10 minutes on the medium level. I even asked my boyfriend to come try and he also had a hard time and ending up giving up after a couple tries. This made me feel a little better about not being able to figure it out. haha One thing I did notice doing this activity was that if i was able to use certain pentominos more then once it would be a lot easier to do. But that isn't the case. I tried the hard one once just to see what it looked like and as you can guess I was unable to figure it out. I became very frustrated with the petomino spatial activities as I tried several times and just couldn't figure it out. I feel like if it is hard for me how can I expect my elementary students to be able to do it. If I had them do activities ...

Nets Activity  I would do a similar activity in my class by having them guess before starting how many and which ones could be folded into a box without the lid. After taking a vote we would test it out as a class. I think by doing it as a class it would be easier for students because they could talk it out with each other.   I thought the activity was pretty simple I knew from the start that the one with 5 in a straight line wouldnt work and same with the one that had 2 blocks touching 2 blocks so that meant I only needed to come up with 2 more that wouldnt work. I had a little trouble with the other 2 that didn't work and need to fold them to make sure I was right. Some problems I think students would have it possibly ripping the pieces or not folding the blocks on the lines so it might not look like a block without a lid.  What grade level do you think an activity like this would best work for? Or could this be something used by all grade levels? Tex...

Quick Images Video In this video the first image the teacher shows the students is one that to be I would describe as a moon with a small circle in the middle of it. After showing the students the shape 2 types and allowing them time to draw the shape they talk about it as a class. One thing the teacher says is she asked the students is the shape reminds them of anything. This is a good way to remember things because you are comparing it to an actual item. One student says what I stated in the beginning that is looks like a moon. Another student compares the shape to the letter C. Other students name things that is reminds them of, this shows that there isn't just 1 correct answer for questions like this.  Did you think of anything else that is looks like that the students didn't say? Shapes and Geometric Definitions My definitions for these geometric terms come from many years ago in elementary school or maybe even before that in preschool. I just always remember that...

Key Ideas in Geometry What are the key ideas of geometry that you want your students to work through during the school year? The key ideas of geometry I want my students to work through during the school is to better understand shapes and their attributes.Having my students be able to name different shapes just by knowing their sides or angles is a huge start. In my field experience class they just started working on this and some kids are having trouble, I never thought as just being able to name different shapes would be that hard for students but this has now proved me wrong. I feel as those for the other key ideas that I would want my students to learn would have to depend on what grade I end up teaching. Are there key ideas that you think are more important than others? Van Hiele Levels and Polygon Properties I think that the power point was very informative. I never thought about students being at different levels to understand a concept. I just thought about d...

Textbook Reading What are the advantages of having students conduct experiments even before they attempt to figure out a theoretical probability? The advantages of having students conduct experiments before they attempt to figure out theoretical probability is they are able to make their own predictions. They then use their predictions to try and make connections about what might happen. Go to the Illuminations website and explore one of the virtual experiments. List the title and describe the experiment that you explored and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of virtual experiments. (http://illuminations.nctm.org/ and use the search site: probability and check interactives)  The title of the virtual experiment I explored was Adjustable Spinner. The virtual spinner was actually really cool. It allowed you to pick how big you wanted each part of the spinner. You got to choose how many times you spun the spinner. Each time you spun the spinner it changed both th...

Box Plots I would want to teach a lesson to Class B because most of the class seems to understand the topic. There are just a few students who don't understand the topic well. I feel like you couldnt just teach a follow-up lesson to Class A, with class A you need to really reteach pretty much the whole lesson because it seems like none of the class really understood anything that was taught. I mean the highest test score was a 60% which is pretty low and a D in most schools.  Do you think it would be easier to teach Class A or Class B? Why? Three Questions to ask students: 1. Which class on average do you think collected more trash? - I think the US class collected more data based on looking at the two box plots. This is because the average amount from the German class was a little  over 50 lbs and the average for the US class was about 80 lbs. 2. How does the amount of students in each class effect the data? - I don't think that the amount of students has tha...

Generating Meaning This article addresses how students need to understand the real meaning of range, mean, median, and mode before they are really able to understand how to find the average. It talks about how students need to understand the concept of how to find the average and not just know the procedure. The article then goes on to explain how they need to look, determine, develop, recognize, and understand  to fully get how to understand the average. The article then goes to talk about different activities to do with the students to get them to be able to really understand the concept. I really don't remember that much about my elementary school math but I do remember that when my teacher would talk about mean she would just talk about how it was the average amount of a data set. I remember the teacher asking us questions like "how many siblings do you have?" or "how many pets do you have?" and then using that data we needed to calculate what the mean or...