Blog on Videos

A.)  What does the student know?

Video 1:  what shapes look like…she can draw them with her fingers

Video 2:  the student realized in the end that triangles turned upside down and sideways are still triangles but it took him some time figuring this out

Video 3:  knows how many sides the obtuse triangle has

Video 4:  knows basic definitions of congruent and similar

Video 5:  knows about angles and degrees, about how to measure angles

Video 6:  this was an interesting video, I think he realizes that he is working with 3-D shapes; he knew the name of the cube

Video 7:  knows how to make shapes and letters out of triangles

 B.)  What does the student not know?

Video 1:  how to explain what shapes are…she can’t describe the shape to the teacher

Video 2:  doesn’t know how to explain/describe what makes a triangle a triangle

Video 3:  doesn’t know that an obtuse triangle is a triangle; doesn’t know the characteristics of a triangle

Video 4:  doesn’t understand that shapes can still be similar if they are the same size, doesn’t really grasp what makes things similar

Video 5:  needs to learn more about the sizes of angles and degrees and hoe to measure it correctly

Video 6:  he didn’t realize that he was looking at rectangular prisms, triangular prisms and so on..he couldn’t indentify all of the shapes

Video 7:  doesn’t know how to sort triangles by different sizes, etc..

 C.)  Ideas for teaching…

Video 1:  Go over definitions of shapes, talk about what makes a triangle a triangle and a square a square and so on…

Video 2: same thing, I would go over what makes a shape a shape, with more practice and discussion this student could understand

Video 3:  discuss characteristics of triangles and show many different kinds and sizes of various triangle

Video 4:  show a bunch of congruent and similar shapes and discuss them and go over why they are either similar or congruent

Video 5:  Use the manipualatives from the video and practice measuring angles together

Video 6:  discuss what makes something 3-D versus 2-D and what makes a rectangular prism different from a rectangle, discuss faces/sides of the shapes

Video 7:  go over different types of triangles and sorting techniques

 

Symmetry Lesson

 My cooperating teacher was out for a couple of days so I got to substitute for the class.  I got to teach a really neat lesson on symmetry from the Investigations book. 

First, I put a transparency of a symmetrical shape on the overhead projector and had students tell me what they noticed about the shape.  A lot of kids were able to see that the shape was the same on both sides.  Some also commented on how if you folded the shape in half how the two sides would match up.  This was a good segue into discussing the definitions of symmetry, reflection and mirror symmetry and so forth…

 Then, I let each student pick two of the same pattern blocks (they could choose anything but the yellow hexagons).  I then gave them each a mirror and a piece of copy paper.  I had them draw a line down the middle of their paper and place one shape up against the line.  Then they held the mirror up against the shape and saw the reflection.  They commented on how it was the same on both sides or symmetrical.  Then they placed the other remaining pattern block up against the shape and saw that it looked the same as the reflection did in the mirror.  They traced over their shapes to show that each side is symmetrical. 

I think that was a fun lesson to introduce symmetry.  The students seemed to really enjoy it and all of them seemed to understand symmetry and be able to draw   symmetrical shapes once the lesson was finished.  I had a good time teaching for the couple of days that my cooperating teacher was out.  It made me realize how much I am going to enjoy having my own class one day!

 

Diagnostic and Teaching Experience So Far….

I am really loving my teaching experience so far!  I have been lucky enough to get a great cooperating teacher.  I have already learned so much from her and feel that by the end of the year I will be greatly prepared for my own classroom.  She really lets me get involved in the classroom and lets me teach small lessons.  I like getting this extra practice because it makes me feel less nervous for when I start my student teaching in the spring.

I am in a 2^nd grade classroom at Elon Park in Ballantyne now.  Elon Park is a wonderful school and I would love to be able to get a job their next year.  All of the staff seems to really respect and get along with each other.  The parents of the students are pretty involved as well.  It is a great working environment!

As for my diagnostic project, I am halfway through and fell it is going pretty well.  I feel a little overwhelmed but I’ll get through it.  It is a lot of work coming up with all of the lessons and writing out all of the lesson plans.  However, I love working with the kids in my group.  All of my kids are wonderful and so far the extra practice that they are getting from me working with them seems to be helping.

Fraction Module Questions

What other manipulatives or strategies that we discussed do you think have the most benefit to students that are struggling with fractions?

I really like the rorange strategy that we discussed in Dr. Green’s class to help kids who are struggling with fractions.  I have always had a hard time with fractions and when I was introduced and taught the rorange concept, fractions actually made sense to me.  I also saw 4th graders utilizing it during math CAMMP and they seemed to really enjoy it.  It seemed like all of the students understood what they were doing and it made sense to them. 

I also like how we discussed comparing fractions to a pizza in class.  I think this is also a good way to help students who are struggling with fractions because they can relate it to real life.  The paper strips would be a useful manipulative too.

What questions do you still have related to addressing students’ difficulties with fractions?

I still am apprehensive about teaching children fractions.  Some of the questions I have would be…

1.  Are there workshops or websites out there that can help teachers learn about different ways to teach fractions effectively? 

2.  What do you do with students who just can’t comprehend fractions?  I know there are games like the ones on the modules, but if this doesn’t help, what other strategies could you use?

3.  How do you make sure that you differentiate instruction for the kids who really get it and for the kids who are struggling without letting anyone fall through the cracks?

Fractions

I found the chapter on fractions really interesting.  Fractions have never been my strong point and I have a lot of apprehension towards teaching fractions later on this year.   (I am in a 2nd grade classroom and we introduce fractions when I start doing my student teaching later on in the year.)  This article talked about making sense out of fractions and finding the best way for students to comprehend them.  I wish that I had been shown different ways to learn and comprehend fractions when I was growing up because I think I wouldn’t be so apprehensive about it now. 

The chapter also mentioned how students who don’t have a thorough understanding of rational numbers and students who don’t do well with reasoning may have missed their window of opportunity to ever fully understand fractions.  I think that’s why it is so important to teach children about fractions in the correct way so that they can understand it and be able to feel comfortable with it. 

I really enjoyed using the rorange model that we learned about it during the summer math course.  That was the first time that fractions ever really and truly made complete sense to me.  I definitely want to use the rorange model to teach my students about fractions when the time comes.  I think if children can learn to understand fractions at a young age, it will help them to feel more comfortable learning other things such as trigonometry and so on in the future.

Place Value Game

 I am in a  2nd grade class for my internship and the students in my class are typically pretty good at the math that we’ve done so far.  I feel like sometimes the Investigation book that we use can linger on one subject a little too long and the students can tend to not be challenged enough.  Therefore, the teacher and I try to come up with other things to do to beef up the lessons a little bit.   The teacher I am doing my internship with came up with a really good game this week to help kids learn place value. 

First, she went over place value and showed the kids how to determine where the ones and tens value go.  After it seemed like they were getting the concept, we split them into small groups.  Then, we had little circular looking dart boards that had different numbers in each section.  We put these on the floor and the students had to throw a bean bag onto the tens “dart board” and throw another bean bag onto the ones “dart board”  and write down the number that the bean bags landed on into the correct place value on individual white boards that they had.  They really got into this and it seemed to really help them learn their place value.  They all seemed to work together to help each other out too.

I  definitely want to use this technique in my own classroom one day when teaching place value.  I loved to see the kids having fun and learning at the same time.

Teacher as Architect of Mathematical Tasks

I found this article pretty interesting.  I like how it refers to teachers as curriculum architects who need to make sure that they are giving their students engaging and worthwhile mathematical tasks to complete.  The article states that good tasks need to be:

• Authentic
• Challenging
• Need to pique the curiosity of the students
• Need to encourage students to make sense of mathematical ideas
• Need to encourage multiple perspectives.

I agree with this and think that students need to be engaged but also challenged when they are learning math.  I think students should be able to justify and explain their answers instead of just being able to get to the right answer without knowing how they got there.  I also think students should be able to show all of their work when completing math problems. 

The article gave examples of using real life situations to teach the students math skills as well.  For example, when students asked the teacher referred to in the article how old her baby was, the teacher had the students figure out how old her baby was instead of just telling them the answer.  She also built on this and asked them more challenging questions to follow the initial question and she made them explain their work.  This got the students very interested in figuring out the problem and made them enjoy learning math.  I think it’s great to incorporate real life situations into teaching children math and I plan on doing that as often as I can.

How can technology benefit student learning?

I think technology can benefit student learning by allowing students an almost endless possibility of resources to learn from.  They can find so much information on the web on basically any subject.  They can watch videos, read articles, read excerpts from books, look at tons of different websites and so on.  It is so much easier  and more efficient to look something up on-line than it is to look it up in the encyclopedia or go to the library to find information on a certain subject.  I think students should get as comfortable as they can with technology that can benefit their learning.  It also will help them in the real world.  Most jobs nowadays require you to be proficient in lots of different computer applications.  As long as students use technology to enhance their learning, I think different forms of technology should be allowed in schools.  If used appropriately, technology could greatly improve their learning capacity.

What issues related to internet use exist in schools? How can you address them as a teacher?

I think there are a lot of issues that exist by students using the Internet in school.  Some examples are: 1. not using the Internet for educational purposes 2. students finding/seeing inappropriate material 3. cyber bullying 4. students giving out personal information that should not be public knowledge 5. the chance that possible predators could contact them on-line and so on.  I think teachers should always monitor, as much as they possibly can, what students are looking at while they’re on-line.  They should also use the school tracking system to make sure they are not accessing anything that is inappropriate.  I also think it is smart for teachers to discuss the rules and consequences of breaking the rules of using the Internet with their students and make sure they know that their access to the Internet can be taken away if they are caught misusing it.

Howard Gardner

I think Howard Gardner had some very interesting things to say in the movie clip.  I agree that children know what ethics are.  I also agree that teachers should act as coaches to help their students.  I like how he said that in the old days if you wanted to find an answer to a question you would look it up in the encyclopedia but nowadays you can just go on-line and find your answer on such sites as wikipedia.  I remember having to do homework when I was in elementary school using the heavy books of the encyclopedia.  Times are  different than they used to be.  We have so much more technology that is available to students.  It is our responsibility as teachers to make sure students learn how to use all of these new resources and be responsible while doing so.  Like Mr. Gardner said at the end of the clip, hopefully from all of these new resources we will have an “edutopia instead of an edunightmare.”