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Week Six

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Concluding the Semester For our last class we focused on assessment, and everything seemed to come together! We looked at tips and tricks for assessment, such as keeping tests and quizzes simple, only include assessments that speak to what you want them to be successful at, design questions or tasks that allow students to think creatively or critically to show their mastery of the concepts, and include feedback/comments so students know what they are excelling at just as much as they know where they can improve and develop. This concept of giving feedback and comments is touched on in the video Introduction to Junior/Intermediate Conversations . The video explains the importance of including questions in your feedback so students can think critically about their development. It also mentions reflecting on the feedback that you are giving students, to question whether your feedback is helping with the students' thinking and development. It is important to also give conversational...
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Week Five

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Blended Learning and Technological Integration in Mathematics "Eight Awesome Features Mojang Should Add to Minecraft" by BagoGames, taken on June 17 2012 This week we learned about blended learning and technology in mathematics. In the article, Making Math Children Will Love: Building Positive Mathitudes to ImproveStudent Achievement in Mathematics  it is discussed how utilizing resources to improve students’ relationships with mathematics can increase student engagement emotionally, motivationally, and create an overall increased level of interest. The article goes on to outline how learning begins with play. When students are positive and engaged in mathematics they will be more motivated to learn. “Fun” is an important concept to remember when planning math lessons. Playing with math can be more crucial to student learning than simply lecturing math theories or strategies “at” students. Allowing students to “play” and have “fun” will encourage ...
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Week Four

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This week’s learning was very interesting and allowed us to think outside the box about how to encourage students to think outside the box! After this week’s readings, online module, and class, I have developed a new mindset for teaching that is focused on providing equitable learning for all students. After this week I have developed the mindset that all students should know they can be math thinkers, problem-solvers, and thrive in their mathematical journey. Despite the math concept, theory, equation, or problem, students should feel confident taking risks and challenging themselves. They should be able to develop and grow, and find the strategies that work for them! I learned that this can be accomplished through providing students with rich tasks. This quick video sums up this thought process: The speaker explains how students should be enthusiastic and engaged in their math learning, leaders in their learning, and can persevere through tasks. This will help them realiz...
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Week Three

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Differentiated Instruction Doesn't Have to be Daunting  J This past week we looked at an article detailing differentiated instruction in mathematics: DifferentiatingMathematics Instruction . We also watched videos detailing why making mistakes in mathematics is a good thing and actually leads to success. In class the learning goals were to explore more instructional methods of differentiation, explore strategies for working with English Language Learners, and gaining skill in recognizing rich tasks and using parallel tasks (which also overlaps with the article on differentiation that I mentioned we read.             First things first, differentiating instruction can appear to be a daunting task. That is definitely what I thought when I was first exposed to and taught the concept during my first year of teacher’s college. Unfortunately, that concept continues to seem challenging. However, I belie...
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