I really enjoyed all of the required videos for this session. After not teaching for quite some time, it is refreshing to come back to a little bit more structure than when I left. The three key points mentioned revolve around real life situations, using technology, and the need for as much math practice as possible with basic facts.
I really enjoyed a video within the www.insidemathematics.org. A woman brought in experts in the field of engineering after her students learned about drag/pull, a physics concept. There is a method developed by a woman named Dr. Kulthau that I learned about in my educational media classes. Her method revolves around the inquiry process. This process begins with sparking students’ interests by bringing in experts within the particular field to show relevance to life situations, showing short video clips, allowing the students to play around with hands-on materials, or all of the above pertaining to the state objective at hand. They students have questions ready before the experts come in, and develop more questions to answer themselves through investigating online tools and other resources.
This model can be completed with math in the elementary classroom using real life situations, technology, and basic practices within math. For fractions, a student’s parent could come in that enjoys cooking. Asking measurement questions pertaining to the size measuring cups will get discussions flowing, or take it to the next level with how many cookies to bake when having a certain amount of visitors or cost of ingredients, etc. It takes way more planning than just, “Take out your math books, turn to page 20, and let’s do a math drill,” but it is worth it, and like described in our required reading and viewing of videos, it is the best route.
With addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, simple manipulation of objects can allow the students to see different ways of illustrating a problem. Many picture books based on math problems can be read at the beginning of a math class to be briefly discussed and illustrated through the math concept. As the story is being read, the teacher can ask questions to prompt ideas from students about how to solve the character’s problem. Students can have discussions about which process works the best and why. A homework assignment of getting a book at the library about an upcoming math concept can be tasked. That way, the student knows the concept can be taken away from the math textbook and placed in a real world situation. Or, instead of seeking out books about life experiences of basic facts, the students can write their own, or have the homework project of creating their own math story and illustrating it. It can be either digitally created and put on the school’s or class website for a digital archive. Or, it can be a physical copy, then scanned to be a digitally saved.
Involving technology and creating a balance are both necessary. Integrating technology in math can be easy and fun with social media. Take Instagram, for example. If a student sees a real life situation regarding an objective learned in math, he can take a picture of it and/or write about it, post it, and add a designated hashtag. A digital collection by the class can then be established. The same can be applied for Twitter, Facebook, etc.
With regards to technology, using it versus completely leaning against it for support needs to be differentiated. I grew up with teachers and parents asking if mere calculators should be used in a classroom versus fact memorization. I still use a calculator today, but I know when to use one versus having facts from memory, because I was taught how to use both. Students today need to be taught about the most appropriate time to use their brain versus technology. Both are needed for real world situations.