Curriculum Plan

Although this project was very challenging I believe that I benefited a lot from it all. I learned what it takes to develop a strong curriculum plan that covers all the common core math standards and is also inquiry based learning. I think that the most challenging part was all the thinking that went into it. We started off over thinking a lot of the material. We were trying to create too challenging of a project. Once we realized what we needed to do the rest of it was a bit easier. However the hardest part of it all was the semester long projects for all grade levels. It was really hard to think of something the students could truly be working on for a whole semester and not become bored with the task.

I got super lucky, I had amazing group members. We all got a long so well and we all understood the math background at the same level, which made our plan much stronger.

In terms of all the presentations I believe that what some people believe is a good math curriculum is different than what others believe to be true. I enjoyed watching and learning about all the other grade level curriculum plans. However for more than one I didn’t understand the structure that they were using. I felt that the way they organized their plans was confusing and would also confuse the students as well. I think as teachers it is important to make sure that we are creating strong math lessons at every grade level. I have saved all the other plans on my computer and I plan on adjusting them and using them later in life in the teaching field.     

Assessment Articles

Portfolio: This article was talking about a teacher who decided to use portfolios as a way of assessment in her math classroom. She allowed the students to pick the materials they felt should be in the portfolio and then they had to so some sort of reflection with them. I really like the idea of portfolios I think it is a great way to allow the student to be proud of the accomplishments and advances they have made throughout the year and to showcase their skills. I think it allows will cause the students to put out better work. It is using a hidden message to better the efforts of students without them even knowing that is happening. 

Conversation: This article is addressing the importance of conversation in the math classroom. The article is addressing how based on conversations in the classroom the teacher might need to change the plans for the day. For example this teacher was able to realize that her students were struggling with some of the properties of a rectangle, so instead of moving on she created a small mini-lesson on the spot to help improve her students’ understandings of the topic. I really like the idea of assessing the conversations that take place in a classroom I believe that it allows for the teacher to reflect on her teaching methods based on how well the students are speaking about the topic they just learned. I believe that this is allows for the teacher to create stronger lessons and for the students to speak up about their understandings.

Open-Ended: This article is addressing how open-ended questions can work in a math classroom. I really like this because I believe that it allows students to really vocalize their thought process for the math concept. This also allows the teacher to feel like they are better able to understand and student’s understanding.  

Reasoning: The article is addressing problem solving. The students are asked to define and explain area in their own words to the teacher. This is yet another way for the teacher to hear and better understand their students’ understandings of a certain math topic.

Options: This article is addressing some different ways of assessing math in the classroom. The articles focused on the difference between multiple choice and performance based assessment and how performance based assessment is better. 

Classroom Changes Reflection

The math classroom in the 21^st century in taking on some very different changes compared to some of the years prior. Math is becoming more inquiry based. Students learn best when they are discovering and exploring. This is hard to do for every math topic and for every lesson; however as future teachers it is important to provide our students with sufficient lessons that will challenge them and allow them to explore and investigate the different math problems. The math environment is important as well. We need to make sure we are providing students with a variety of different communicating tasks as well. For example students should be given the chance to work with groups, partners individually and also have the chance to present their knowledge to the class. We are not only building strong math learners we are build strong life skill learners. A math classroom needs to have a variety of different teaching and learning tasks and these should be altered quite frequently. This will keep the students more engaged and on task and hopefully excited about learning.  

Assessment Reflection

I think that one of the most influential impacts that I got out of this class is that math does not always need to include a math test to test your skills and understanding. Out of all the different assessment ways we have learned about in this class I think that my favorite might be the portfolio. I really like that the student gets to decide how they which to showcase their skills. I think this also allows the student to take pride in their learning and truthfully see how they have evolved with their skills and knowledge.

In addition I also really liked how we did some recording to voice our knowledge of different math skills. I think that this is a great way to really hear and understand a student’s process skills and understand on a topic. If you ask the student to prove you with visuals as well this can make the voice recording assessment even stronger.

Lastly I like that the class is very reflective. At sometimes I feel that it is almost too reflective; however I believe that when students are given time to reflect is it also time for them to really digest what they learned or experienced. This will allow them to process their skills and hopefully understand them to a level that they will be able to use the next them they are presented with a different challenge or math problem.   

Technology Reflection

I really liked that we spent some time making sure we knew different ways to use technology in a math classroom. Personally I think that class was the first time I have ever learned so much about the smartboard and all the different things it is capable of; they usually are just used for projections purposes in my other classrooms. I wish more of the professors spent more time teacher us about them. I also really liked the apps and applets presentations; however I would say for next time I think it might be more helpful to have the students present two apps and one applet. We live in such an apple/app run society these days, and apple run schools are becoming more popular. I just think that might be more helpful as the years go on. Also I think that Westlake has an ipad cart. I think that it would be really cool to just spend half a day working with the ipads and some of the apps that people present (the free ones at least). Personally I believe that a technology day would be really helpful and should take the place of one of the other activities that this class has.   

Manipulatives Reflection

I really enjoyed the manipulative activity. I felt that it was really useful to work with and think about them all in a different light. It is very true that we might be hired somewhere where they don’t even have one math manipulative so we need to learn how to use what we have the fullest potential to better the understanding and knowledge  level for our students to the best of our abilities.

How do you know students deepen their understanding while using manipulatives?

They are able to work with the manipulatives to physically see the math applications that are occurring. This allows them to understand what they are seeing to help make better sense of the applications when they are not using the manipulatives.

How do you know if the students can transfer their understanding from manipulatives to other situations?

You have to slowly teach the students how to do the application with less and less manipulatives. If they can solve the correct answer to the math problem posed without the use of manipulatives you have worked with their level of proximal development and scaffolded them to the zone in which they are currently in for the use of that specific math application to be done without the use of manipulatives.

How can you assess that understanding or growth?

I believe that this is done in a variety of ways.

   a.       Simply walking around and observing the students’ working with the manipulatives. Try and              hear what they are saying to themselves while they are using their processing skills.

   b.      Provide them with a task and see how they perform.

   c.       Ask them to teach you the concept and see how well they are able to accurately teach you.

   d.      Their performance level on classroom or state level testing.

When students work in groups, how do you hold each youngster accountable for learning?

I believe that this is a challenging task. However I have learned that if students are given a roll to fulfill and carry out with their group members there is a better chance each student will be learning and participating.

When students work in groups, how do you assess each youngster’s depth of understanding?

You can ask the group to present what they working on to the class or to you individuals and asses the body language and verbal language from each student. I believe you can also have the students complete a reflection; which will allow them to tell you what they did and what they believe they got out of the experience.

How are you improving students’ problem solving skills with the manipulatives?

I believe that the use of manipulatives allows students to improve problem solving skills because it is allowing them to physically see the reasoning and proof behind the math application/task. Then later the student will be able to draw from their experience with the manipulatives to help them make sense of and understand a more difficult math problem. They will be able to visualize what they were working with and possibly use that knowledge to solve the new/ more challenging math problems.  

Errors/reteach reflection

I really enjoyed this activity. I found it fun and interesting. It was like playing a little math game. It was also really eye opening because I never realized some of the strange ways that my future students could possibly misunderstand math applications. I really liked that we were asked to think of a way to reteach the coordinating topic for one of the students. This is an important practice that I think some teachers forget. If a student does not fully understand the math concept at least 90% percent of the time I believe a reteach is a must. I know of plenty of people in my high school who were placed in a lower math class because they needed to be retaught a lot; which is a weird concept. However this is how my school made sure everyone was getting the right math education at the right level. I think teacher avoid re-teaching because they feel that it will take away time from other material that needs to be coved. Which is the truth, but how will the student understand the new material if they can’t even understand the current material? As a future teacher I will look for these possible errors or misunderstandings with my future students and reteach when necessary.