Week 12 Reflection Post

Retrieved December 5th 2016 from: AdventurousChica

Hey guys! This is likely going to be my last math blog post for a while...we are getting ready to head into our placements, yay! (OK the thought is actually terrifying me) but I just wanted to talk about some of the things I have learned throughout the last 12 weeks.

I came into this math course unbelievably nervous that I was not going to do well because I would need to know how to do math...How wrong I was!!! I learned that you do not need to be a math whiz to be able to teach math, I've now learned through experience that it is OK to tell students "I don't know the answer to that right now but let me find it for you" or "why don't we find that answer together?". When I started teachers college I was so worried that teachers needed to know everything, that is the biggest misconception I could have had, teachers learn just as much as students do, we learn from each other.

I have learned through our assignments in this class that with a little bit of time and effort, putting together a lesson that is well organized and effective that you understand, is not all that difficult, sure it may seem daunting, but a little bit of time and effort goes a long way. I've also learned many tips and tricks for engaging students and having them learn while having fun! We have done things like Easter Egg hunts, number lines, and in my placement class we did a Pokemon Go scavenger hunt!

Throughout the past 12 weeks we have watched our classmates become more confident in their abilities as educators and it is because we have had great support with guidance through all the ways we can be effective in the classroom. Math is still a scary thought for me, I was speaking with a high school math teacher over the past weekend and listening to her talk about the projects her students were working on scared the pants off me. However, this doesn't mean that it is something I would not be able to do anymore, it just means I need to be flexible and have an open mind when it comes to myself and my students abilities in the classroom.

Thank you guys so much for reading over the last 12 weeks and I will try and keep you updated throughout my placement!

Reflection 2

Which Professional Learning Goal would I want to emphasize during a job interview?

Policy:
Fundamental Principles

My learning goal is to ensure that all of my students have the opportunity provided to them as often as possible to succeed, not simply in school, but in life as well.

To achieve this goal, I must be attentive to each and every student in the classroom and make sure I am enabling them to do their best through differentiated instruction when it is necessary

Special Education in Ontario:  Weber, K. J., and Sheila Bennett. Special Education in Ontario  Schools. Seventh ed. St. Davids: Highland, 2013. Print. Student Success Strategy. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teachers/studentsuccess/strategy.html

I would choose to emphasize this in a job interview because I feel like student success is the most important part of their education. Making every student believe that they are able and capable of achieving something is imperative to their continued effort and engagement. I have personally worked with a student in my placement on a math assignment and saw that he was struggling with a certain concept, as I worked through the problems with him and provided him with as many different tips and tricks as possible, he was successfully able to complete the task and his confidence was boosted tremendously. 

Reflection 1

Think about how you will use the Assessment page of your Digital Portfolio during your first teaching block. Provide 2 examples, 1 writing paragraph for each.

1) I plan to use my Assessment page of my Digital Portfolio in many different ways throughout my teaching block. To begin with, I believe it will be convenient to have so many useful resources all located in one easy place to find. The resources we have used throughout the year are fantastic for providing answers to possibly tricky questions or situations we may face in the coming weeks. I believe as educators it is important that we put in the most effort possible when it comes to being fair and just with our students so simply answering something we may be unsure of without checking the resources available to us is unfathomable to me.

2) I can also see myself using my Assessment page as a reminder that there are many steps to follow when assessing and evaluating students. The steps of the process have been laid out for us in our AER Strategy Form and allow us to reflect on how we are growing as educators; are we treating students equally or are we letting our personal bias' get in the way of being fair? It serves as a reminder that every student has the right to be successful and that we have set personal goals to achieve throughout our teaching block. This process is something that must be taken seriously because we are responsible for these students' future, molding them and shaping them and helping them to become the best that they can be.

AER Strategy For- EDBE 8Y01

Hey guys, take a look at this document to see some of the goals I will be setting for myself in my placement throughout the year!

Week 11 Reflection- Effective Assessment in Math

Retrieved 

What a big week we had this week...we are winding down the semester with nearly all of our assignments done (yahoo!) and have finally now had a taste of what it is like to lesson plan. I don't know about everybody else, but I struggled with the assessment part of the lesson plan. I thought to myself, what is the point of teaching a lesson if we can't assess our students on it? 

My biggest challenge that I face when I think of assessment is being fair to all students and making sure that I am evaluating them all with the same opportunities and the same mindset based on their individual needs. We have learned over the last 12 weeks that there are three different levels of assessment. Assessment for, as and of learning...what are these, you ask? Let's take a look. 

Assessment FOR Learning

Assessment for learning is a form of assessment that is used to determine student progress. Teachers are able to adjust learning to the needs of the students and provide feedback. 

Assessment OF Learning

Assessment of learning is the use of a task or an in class activity to measure, record and report on a student's level of achievement. Are they getting it? 

Assessment AS Learning

This is a form of assessment that allows students to use assessment to further their own learning. Students can use this to reflect on their learning and to set personal goals for themselves. 

Something I did not realize coming into teachers college that assessing a students level of achievement could be so complicated! I think we all assume it's going to be nice and easy every day, that everything is going to go smoothly, but as I've started putting together lesson plans I have started to realize that could not be farther from the truth...I've got something else coming for me in the real world eh? 

The most important thing that we need to remember is that we need to be fair to all students, give every single one of them an equal opportunity to succeed. As educators, it is our job to mold and shape these children into who they are going to become. We will spend an extremely large chunk of their lives with them between the months of September to June so we better make sure that we ALL try our best. 

Thanks for reading again this week, that's me signing off. Toodaloo! 

via GIPHY

Why is Oral Communication so Important?

Retrieved November 28th, 2016 From: Blogger

Why is it so important to teach Oral Communication to our youth? Being well spoken is a talent that requires much time and detail to conquer.  But we ask ourselves, why is it so important that we be well-spoken? Someone who is able to efficiently get their ideas from their head out into the open is someone who will go far in life. However, there is much more to it than simply being able to say what we are thinking, being able to do it in a well put together manner, being respectful of others, making sure our ideas are organized to make sense to others are all things one must learn how to do. 

The Ontario Language Curriculum states that, through talk, students not only communicate information but also explore and come to understand ideas and concepts; identify and solve problems; organize their experience and knowledge; and express and clarify their thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Ontario Language Curriculum Grades 1-8. (2006). 

How do we teach Oral Communication skills? Through modelling, through good listening, through debate and through as many open discussions as possible. Although speeches are less common today than they were when I went to school, I personally still find them to be an effective way to help with student confidence. No matter how front and centre technology becomes, Oral Communication will always be something that we need in life, going for an interview, speaking to a boss, a colleague, even a friend or a family member. It is so easy for us to just want to say whatever comes to mind however we need to take a step back and realize that an educated thought and verbal reaction will most likely have a better result than simply "word-vomiting" whatever comes to mind. 

I believe that many educators are afraid of encouraging Oral Communication in the classroom because it is easy to lose control of the class if you have a larger group. In my placement class, we have thirty one kids so maintaining order to get through the day is one of the toughest battles. Having strategically planned and well thought out classroom discussions is imperative to making sure you will not lose that class' attention. You want your students to be engaged in what they are talking about to promote as much participation related to the subject as possible. 

Listening skills go hand-in-hand with speaking skills...The Ontario Language Curriculum states that "students will: listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes".  How do we accomplish this? Having a respectful classroom environment is the starting point of good listening skills, no interrupting others while they are speaking, encouraging students to have silent time every day and having listening activities such as the game "Telephone" or one that we explored in our class last week called "Pass the Buck". These games force students to use their listening skills to be able to continue the story from where it left off. Playing games while learning, why not!? 

Retrieved November 27th, 2016 From: InnovAgility

Blog Post 2-Growing Success and Assessment

Assessment

Growing success the Kindergarten Addendum states that there are seven fundamental principles when it comes to assessment. It stresses that assessment should be fair and equitable for all students, it supports all students including those with special education needs, are carefully planned to relate to curriculum expectations, are communicated to both students and parents, are ongoing and varied in nature and help students develop their self-assessment skills to enable them to assess their own learning. Growing Success the kindergarten addendum and Growing Success have both helped me gain a better understanding of how to be conscious of following all of these criteria.

Evaluation and assessment must be fair and equal for all students so reading these documents has put an emphasis on how to be sure to be fair to all students and treat every student equally. each and every student needs to be asses according to their individual needs and as educators, I feel that it is mandatory to ensure we are putting as much effort into student assessment and evaluation as they are when they are submitting their work.

One thing we have learned over the last 11 weeks is that there are 3 different types of assessment, Assessment As Learning, Assessment For Learning and Assessment Of Learning. These are all different levels in which you will be assessing your students. What are they? Good question...

Assessment As Learning

In assessment as learning, students are active contributors. students are assessing themselves as they are learning. 

Assessment For Learning

This is a formative and diagnostic form of assessment. We are assessing something that can be changed if modifications needs to be made based on students levels of understanding. 

Assessment Of Learning

This form of assessment is summative. It is based on using exit cards from a lesson for example, to gain an understand of what students learned during the lesson. 

Reading the Growing Success documents has helped me become much more confident in my abilities to assess students and to know that there are many documents available to help with guidelines and understanding of certain areas if I am having trouble. 

Retrieved November 24th 2016 From: Pinterest

Week 10 Reflection...Data Management and Probability

Retrieved November 21st 2016 from: Vecteezy

Data Management and probability...Does that make the rest of you as nervous as it makes me? How the heck are we supposed to teach students about probability...I've come to learn after our presentations in class this week that the best way to do that, is by playing games! Who wouldn't have loved to play games in school and learn at the same time? 

Some of the best ways to have students gain a conceptual understanding of a certain concept is by having them experiment with real life activities. Things such as card games, money tossing and rolling a pair of die are great ways to have students become engaged in the lesson without having them "hurt their brains" trying to grasp a concept.

Students need to want to learn something to be able to grasp a concept. We as educators, need to make them want to learn, make it engaging, make it fun and encourage them to want to try new things. How do we do this? By making it encouraging, by providing them with as many opportunities as possible to succeed and to test their abilities.

Empowering students is something that we need to do as educators, making them confident in their abilities to succeed, not only in math, however in all subjects. Math is one of the more tricky ones that students might need a little bit more of a push in. Not every student is obligated to fall in love with math, we will always encounter students who really do struggle with it however we can't simply give up on those students because we think it is too difficult to get them to that next level or to pass that upcoming quiz.

I have yet to see the students in my placement take on the Data Management and Probability strand however I look forward to seeing how they will handle it and I look even more forward to seeing how I will learn through them. I have had the opportunity to see things through their eyes and it has opened my mind up to so many more possibilities in the world of education.

Retrieved November 21st 2016 from: Math 6 

Week 9 Reflection...Let's Learn About Measurement

Retrieved November 15th from: Mr.V's Three's!

This week I got to prepare a presentation for my class. Unfortunately, I was unable to present in front of the class, however I was sort of glad because instead, I presented in front of a smaller group of people so it took some of the intimidation factor away. I got the chance to see first hand what it was like to think of all the elements that need to be considered before presenting it to a class.

Measurement seems like such a complex unit, there are so many different branches of it. Our presentation this week for class (since class was online, lucky us, a Friday off!) talked about what is introduced to students at what age. Grade 3 consists of things as simple as using a ruler and beginning to understand how it works, reading time, recording the mass of objects and using those concepts to compare and order objects.

Grade 4 students start to measure length, introducing the idea of perimeter and the idea of area, time intervals, units of measurement (kg, L) and some more complex concepts. Grade 5 is where it really gets interesting, students will start using formulas to calculate perimeter and area of rectangles, they introduce temperature over time and start considering the volume and space of 3D shapes.


Retrieved November 15th 2016 from: via GIPHY

I won't continue to bore you with these fun facts, I just wanted to give you an idea of the integral introduction to the different elements. It might seem small to us, however when preparing a lesson, making sure you are incorporating all of those things can be quite the task. My presentation this week involved the measurement of area...I know right? where do we begin? It was very hard to come up with a starting point because, as an adult, I know how to measure area, L X W = Area...however students would not know that, miss Bunz stated in her presentation that we must not make assumptions about our students prior knowledge, take the time and go over things. After deciding to give the students the formula, I decided to have them put it into action. A suggestion was made to me that instead of providing the students with the formula, I should have tried to give them prompts to find it on their own, such as having them count the squares on grid paper and seeing if they can make the connection themselves before simply giving them to formula.

Doing this presentation was a huge learning opportunity for me, I need to start considering a mini lesson I will be teaching in my practicum, which will include teaching a twenty minute lesson to a group of about 6 children. How perfect that I got to dip my toes into something like this with my presentation this week? We were given the choice of doing a literacy lesson or a math lesson, who would have ever thought that I would pick math...? not me, that's for sure!

 
Retrieved November 16th from: via GIPHY

Teaching kids to write...how do we do it?

Retrieved November 12th 2016 from: BBC World Service

One of the things I wanted to talk about this week was how unprepared I felt going into high school and university. When I started my Undergraduate program at Brock University, I had only ever written a handful of essay papers in English, let alone ever looked at proper formatting and citing methods. If someone had asked me what APA or MLA or Chicago style formatting were in those first few weeks of school, I would not have known how to answer them. 

Are we setting these kids up for success or failure by teaching them the typical Introduction, three main paragraphs and a Conclusion? Nowhere in the writing strand of the curriculum does it say that this is the required format of writing. The curriculum states that students should "draft and revise their writing, using a variety of informational, literary, and graphic forms and stylistic elements appropriate for the purpose and audience". I personally think that by teaching students they must write using the "Hamburger" method, (your top bun is your introduction, your lettuce, tomato and hamburger patty are your three development paragraphs and your bottom bun is your conclusion) holds children back and doesn't allow creativity. 

Retrieved November 12th 2016 from: Pinterest

In all honesty I think that teachers are set on this style of writing because it is easier to teach and easier to evaluate. We read an article this week that focused on a model that has been introduced to teachers called the IMSCI model, this model focuses on teaching students how to brainstorm and how to get their ideas out. I know personally as a student, being forced to write 3 development paragraphs was always very intimidating because I have never been able to force myself to have more ideas, even when writing exams, I would always race through it, put down my main ideas and forcing me to stare at my paper would not magically make me have more to say.

Students should be given the liberty of writing in a way that they are comfortable, I understand that there must be guidelines that have to be followed for evaluation and assessment purposes, but restricting students to a certain style of writing is not going to allow them to do their best work. As many of my fellow teacher candidates have noticed in their practicum sessions, many of the students simply want to rush through their work and get it done which causes several grammatical and sentence structure errors as opposed to taking the time to focus on those things, they simply want to rush through their three paragraphs and be done with it because that is what they have been taught to do. 

The curriculum states that students should be able to "reflect on and identify their strengths as writers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful at different stages in the writing process". In my eyes, this means it is our obligation as teachers to provide students with as many possible opportunities to write as possible in many different ways to help them from a young age learn how to build on the ideas they have rolling around inside their heads. We need to make sure that we are setting these kids up for success and that they are able to brainstorm what is the most important that needs to be said about a topic, find those key elements and be able to elaborate on those key elements instead of trying to pull things from thin air. 

.

Retrieved November 12th 2016 from: Twitter

Week 8 Reflection- Geome-whaaaatt?

Retrieved November 7th 2016 from: Crafthubs

This week, our topic of conversation was geometry...what is the first thing you think of when you hear "geometry"? I think of triangles...however this unit is much more complicated than simply identifying triangles. It concerns the properties and relations of points, lines, surfaces, solids and higher dimensional analogs...what the heck does that mean right?

It has been difficult for me up to this point to really try and see anything in action, however this week during my observation day in my placement class, I had the opportunity to see the nitty gritty of a geometry lesson. The students were working on measuring angles, at the start of the lesson, my associate teachers asked the students "why are the angles on the 3rd page surrounded by a circle?" It was very beneficial for me to experience this because nearly every student in the class had a different answer, ranging from:
- Because the teacher wants to tell us the whole angle
- You can put the arrow anywhere you wish to create an angle
- Because a circle is a full 360 degrees and no matter what angle we put into the circle, it will measure somewhere in between 0 and 360.

I found this absolutely incredible, those were only some of the examples and each student that answered this question was able to reasonably justify their answer. Some of the questions that the teacher asked were simply used as a refresher tool for things they had learned the previous day, such as "what do we use to measure an angle?" (a protractor in case anyone forgets...) and "what types of angles are there?" (acute, obtuse, right and straight).

Being a part of this lesson really helped me overcome some of the fears I thought I would have going into a math lesson, many of the students were coming to me with questions and I found myself readily helping them without much hesitation and I enjoyed being able to help them finally understand how to measure and create angles. One thing I found interesting was that when the students were presented with minimal instructions to create an angle, they struggled with it; many of them wanted step by step instructions to facilitate the task. I would be interested to see how we could try and make students feel more confident in their abilities to complete the tasks on their own.

Retrieved November 9th 2016 from Dreambox

One other thing I wanted to talk about was the website the students were using during part of their math period. This website is called Dreambox, and it is used to help students build conception understanding and fluency. I personally am a strong believer of the saying "practice makes perfect" so when I saw how engaged the students were while using Dreambox it amazed me. It gave me so much hope for this younger generation that they can still find it in them to put forth their best effort if provided with the appropriate tools for today's day and age because if education is something that is always evolving, so should the way we teach. 

Would we want to have been taught the way we are teaching? Or would we want our children to be taught that way? That is one question I will ask myself regularly as I work my way into the profession and I think that more educators should consider these types of questions...just a little food for thought! 

Retrieved November 9th 2016 via GIPHY

Week 7 Reflection - Algebra

Retrieved via GIPHY

This Gif does quite a good job of depicting how I feel when I hear the word "variables". Today in class, we looked at some different strategies/activities to help us understand patterning and algebra. The first thing we looked at was patterning and the demonstration used was the Fibonacci Spiral and I had an extremely hard time understanding the relationship to math/patterning. Ironically, one of the themes we were asked to consider in class this week was "what strategies can you use to help ELL (ESL- English as a Second Language) students in the math classroom"?

After the Fibonacci Spiral presentation I tried to put myself in a student who may not have a great understand of the English language's shoes. I struggled with this concept being someone who has spoken English my entire life, I could not imagine how someone who is new to the language would try and grasp this concept. I started trying to think of what I could do that would make this a little bit more simple to understand? The first thought that occurred to me was "too many words". I was confused as to how this theory was related to math and I feel like if there had been more numbers shown and what exactly these numbers are related to, it would have given me a better idea of what I was doing with it.

Retrieved from MathBlaster

I find that students almost always need the most simple form of something that we can give them. If we don't understand something ourselves, or we don't understand the purpose of something, how can we justify teaching it to our students?

The next concept we looked at today was my favourite term "variables"...solving for X or Y or whatever letter you choose to use as your unknown variable.The photo on the right side of this post depicts how to solve a simple algebraic equation solving for X. You would simply take the unknown variable, move it over to the other side of the equal sign and do the opposite equation to find your answer. Miss Bunz also showed us a neat strategy to help give students a way of visualizing how they might also find the answer for the variable. I personally liked this method and it is something that I foresee myself using in the classroom. If you were to take the same equation, x+8=10 and simply cover the x with your hand and ask your students "what plus 8 equals ten?" it can help take away all of the thoughts of remembering which way you need to move your numbers and what equation it has to become.

This week I feel like one of the most beneficial things I took away from our session was to keep things simple for students, try to avoid over complicating things and to always provide alternative methods for learning and teaching based on your student's needs and comfort levels.

Thank you for reading and I do hope this provides some insight as to how we can all work together to create the next generation of mathematicians!

What is available to help students who have difficulty reading?

Retrieved October 28th from: Pixabay

Retrieved October 28th 2016 from Flickr

This week I wanted to talk about how reading, or lack thereof, seems to be affecting our youth. My placement this year is in a fifth grade classroom, and one thing I have been amazed by, is the number of students with reading disabilities. There are two in my class and this seemed shocking to me, in the fifth grade students are struggling with reading and no alarm bells seem to have gone off yet for anyone regarding this. "What are we doing to help these students?" was the first thing that came to my mind.

I have in fact seen some very interesting resources that are available for these students to use. Every day, students in my class are assigned twenty minutes of "reading for pleasure" after their last nutrition break, during this time, the two students in the class are allowed to use the computer and sign on to a website called TumbleBooks. It is a great resource, provided through the Welland Public Library, and essentially they can pick any book they would like that is available in the E-Book version, there are many categories to choose from, and the book will be read to them as they can listen to it, while the words being read are highlighted on the screen, creating a relationship between what they are hearing and seeing. 

Retrieved October 28th from: Welland Public Library

One thing I love about this resource is the many different options available, students are able to choose the appropriate level of reading, and the style of reading, they can select picture books, Natural Geographic magazines, newspaper clips or comic strips. I feel like it gives them confidence having this at their disposal as they are still able to "read" for pleasure along with the rest of the class instead of being demotivated and getting frustrated by having difficulties reading the "traditional" way. I do believe that these types of resources would help all students, not only students with reading disabilities, become fluent in their reading as hearing someone else read something makes us more aware of what to do with each different type of punctuation mark and sentence structure.

I once read somewhere that "a fluent reader generally translates into a well-written person". This is something I strongly believe in because I have seen it first-hand. My brother has always been extremely interested in reading all different types of books, fiction, mystery, crime and even biographies and history books. I've seen the way he writes and he does not hesitate, he seems to have less issues getting his ideas onto paper and lets his creativity flow.

If students are able to truly become interested in what they are reading, I feel that it would encourage them to become more engaged, if they are provided with many options and feel less "forced" to read, it will allow them to choose more liberally. Just because students have difficulty reading does not mean they are any less interested in it, we mustn't give up on those children as there is nothing worse than discouraging and demotivating a child, we must find ways to encourage them and help guide them in the right direction with all the wonderful tools we have available to us as educators! 

Retrieved October 28th 2016 from: Flickr

Blog Post Week 1- Assessment

Retrieved October 28th 2016 From: JPhotostyle

As I make my way into the seventh week of the Teacher Education Program, I am starting to finally get the hang of it. This week, we started our assessment course, and honestly up to this point, I have not had a tremendous amount of time in the classroom setting. I have been observing in my placement school, however have only had the opportunity to be in the classroom three times so far.


I have noticed that teachers seem to be straying away from the "traditional" testing methods and have become more open to the concepts of differentiated assessment. I do find the task of assessment to be daunting as you need to consider the needs of each individual students, and there may be students in the classroom that have different ways of portraying their ideas.


I remember being tested in school and remember how anxious the traditional method would make me. Being formally tested can be nerve-wracking at any age, even as a university student, the thought of sitting in a gym with hundreds of other students and having the pressure of being done on time makes it seem like it goes by so much faster.


I do believe that traditional assessment can take away from students, it can take away their creativity and the nervousness they may be experiencing may hold them back. Throughout the year I feel like there should be many different options available to students so that they will be assessed in different ways. Traditional testing is necessary in some aspects as you do need to know your students ability level and to make sure that they are being tasked appropriately, however I feel like individual creativity is becoming such a big part of today's education that every student should have the opportunity to be evaluated based on something that would come across as slightly less daunting.


I do look forward to having the opportunity to be in my classroom for my placement more frequently as I have not yet had the chance to experience my associate teacher's methods of assessment and I feel like there is a lot I can learn from someone who has been in the role for a long time. I do feel that there is a lot of pressure on students to succeed, and that the social standards of success can bring a student down if they are not graded where they thought they should have been.


Based on that thought, this is something that does appear at every grade level, we are all so focused on making sure that we receive a level 4 grade, however are we leaving ourselves enough time to maintain a healthy lifestyle? Something I would like to focus on when I am in my teaching block and even observing in my classroom is how effective different types of assessment can be. Is traditional testing the best way to go or will students strive through different methods?

Retrieved October 28th 2016 from: Flickr

Week 6 Reflection, Ratios and Proportions

 

Let's talk about Ratios

Retrieved October 2016 from: Wikipedia

What is this interesting little symbol you ask? This is what we talked about this week, ratios. What is a Ratio? According to "Making Math Meaningful" a ratio is a multiplicative comparison between two numbers. To explain that in more "English" language terms, if we look at the ratio on the right, it can be read as four to three, which can also translate to, there 4 four girl bathrooms for every 3 boy bathrooms. When I was younger, if I were to look at this I would have been extremely intimidated. If I must admit, even during our math refresher course that we had to take, I did struggle the first time through with the ratios and fractions section.

Retrieved October 2016 from: Pixabay

How have I become to feel slightly more confident with these? I have had to observe many different ways of trying to interpret ratios now. This week in class, we had the opportunity to observe our fellow classmates presentations and one stuck with me. I really enjoy cooking and baking and one of my classmates incorporated baking into her activity which really helped me grasp the concept. I personally find that if I can relate something to a real life situation, I will understand it better and remember it better in the future.

I feel like this realization has been personally extremely beneficial and it is something I will strive for in the classroom as a teacher. If students can relate what they are working on in the classroom to something in their every day life, it may help them grasp the concept and be able to create a mental image of something to help them work their way through the problem. I personally feel like this will help students gain a conceptual understanding of ratios and proportions.

Throughout the course, we have to complete 3 forums where we play a math learning game, and then we write about what we thought of it. Coincidentally, I had picked to do mine this week not knowing ahead of time that it would be based on ratios and proportions. Am I ever glad that I picked this week, not only did it give me the opportunity to practice, but it showed me what is available out there as learning tools for students nowadays.

I don't necessarily think that this is a game that I would play as a teaching tool, however I do feel that it could be extremely beneficial in helping students with their speed at determining equivalent fractions. One thing that I am a firm believer of is that practice makes perfect and if students can play games like these, enjoy themselves, and practice their fractions, ratios and proportions at the same time, it is a win-win situation.

Retrieved October 2016 from: Arcademic Skill Builders

Thanks for reading and I hope this will give my fellow teacher candidates who might be slightly apprehensive about math a little bit of an encouragement, because if I can do it, honestly anyone can!

Media Strand Blog Post

How Media Literacy is Impacting Today's Classroom

The beginning of this Teacher Education program has been a huge eyes opener for me. I graduated from my Bachelor's degree in 2014 and decided to take some time off to try and decide what it was I going to spend the rest of my life doing. After venturing around a little bit, I finally came to the conclusion that I wanted to be teaching! Getting back into student role? Not as easy as I thought...

It is unbelievable to see how quickly things are changing in the world of education. The amount of technology I have seen implemented into the classroom has taken some readjustment on my part. One thing I have appreciated though is the fact that we are being provided the opportunity to explore all of these new outlets available. 

We have taken on a project this semester called our Genius Hour Research. This has given me the opportunity to use different form of media to create and explore different forms of media literacy.

           

This video is just an example of one of the different things I have explored so far. I was given the task of creating a movie trailer, this assignment gave me pause. I had to sit down and think of the message I wanted to portray, as in a movie trailer you only have a minute or two to get your idea across and everyone will interpret that message differently.

After doing some research, I came across this article that I found extremely insightful. This article talks about how teachers are now simply guiding their students and don't need to know the answers to everything anymore, they provide students with appropriate tools to find the answers themselves. The article states that the goal of media literacy is to understand how people can interpret different forms of media.

In the Ontario Language Curriculum it talks about how students should be able to create a variety of media texts for different purposes and audiences, using appropriate forms, conventions, and techniques. 

Retrieved October 17th 2016 from curriculum

We have had ample opportunities to use many different outlets to get create media literacy. Things such as Popplet are a great way for students to create an idea map and organize their ideas when they are working on a project and to present those ideas. I find that Popplet is great because the students who are analyzing the media cannot really stray far from the creator's idea or opinion.I have appreciated having the opportunity to explore all of these tools available to us because it has given me the opportunity to learn new things while I'm at it. Many of the apps available force collaboration and group work, they allow students to have a visual and written connection to their work and allow a little bit more creativity.

Media Literacy has been much more complex to learn about that I would have originally expected it to be, however, going with the theme of my readjustment period, everything has been a lot different than I expected it to be. Now that I have seen the tip of the iceberg, I am eager to implement some of the things I have learned into my practicum, unfortunately I have only been in my classroom a few times and have not had much opportunity to test out different strategies, but it is something I look forward to doing!

Retrieved October 17th 2016 from http://www.teachinctrl.org/lessons/mediabetweenlines.php

Math Reflection Week 5

Let's Talk About Integers!

Retrieved October 8th, 2016 From: SparkNotes

This week we had the chance to talk about integers and do some activities in class using some manipulatives to better understand them ourselves. As we worked with the manipulatives, I was able to see how much easier it was to solve problems with the concrete, visual aid. However, I can see that it would be very easy to become dependent on those manipulatives which could be problematic because we need to know how to solve problems without always having them at our fingertips. How can we be sure that our future students won't become dependent on these manipulatives?

This is a tricky subject because we live in a day and age where people are used to having many different things available to them. Everyone has a calculator on their phone and children are getting them younger and younger, so how do we make sure our students can solve problems without relying on their devices or manipulatives? I personally believe that being a visual learner is beneficial, being able to picture something in your head to get the help you need was always enough to get me through. 

On page 352 of Making Math Meaningful, they talk about what appropriate manipulatives would be, there is a great list of helpful tools that can be used to sort of "replace" the calculator. Things such a number lines might be easier to be less dependent on as it would be easier to picture a number line in your head and jump the numbers. 

Making the calculator less available to students might help them become less and less dependent on the manipulatives because they would be learning how to work their way through their problems step by step and and learning the necessary processes. 

Making sure your students gain a conceptual understanding of concepts is also an important step because they may be able to complete an activity or solve a problem, but they may not know why or how they're doing it. Exponents are one of the more tricky concepts to grasp, there is a common mistake that when a student sees 5 to the power of 2 --5(2)-- they think it is 5X2 and not 5X5. I personally feel like one of the easiest ways to explain this dilemma is to have the students write them out completely, 5(2) would become 5X5 or 5(4) would become 5X5X5X5 as you have 5 multiplied by 5, 4 times. 

Retrieved October 8th, 2016 From: Learning with Math

This image depicts how I personally like to break down exponents. 

This last couple weeks has given me the opportunity to become much more confident in my ability to not only teach math, but to understand math as well. Opening yourself up to new concepts and new ideas can be extremely beneficial and having the necessary support and tools provided to me has made it much easier to become open to new ideas and ways of doing things. 

Having a bad experience in math class can really affect how a student looks at it for the rest of their lives. Let's change the negative "stigma" that surrounds math, make it fun and encourage students in the right ways to always express their feelings and ideas in the classroom! There is no wrong answer when someone can justify the reason they came up with the answer they have come to!

Week 3 reflection, I'm not in Kansas anymore...

Things are getting real...

Every week we have a sort of "information overload" trying to sort through everything that needs to be done as Teacher Candidates. I have now had the chance to observe a fifth grade classroom which has greatly helped "open" my eyes when it comes to teaching math. Let's just say, the thought of teaching math doesn't quite scare the pants off me anymore...OK let's not get ahead of ourselves, it is still slightly intimidating, but not as bad as three weeks ago.

This week, our readings that were assigned talked about when it was acceptable to estimate something and which elements matter when you make the decision which strategy to use. When you want to estimate something, the factors to consider are the context and the numbers and operations involved. Chapter 11 talks about the use of manipulatives to model algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and what appropriate manipulatives are considered to be. I've had the opportunity to see the kids in my placement class use manipulatives now and I find it very interesting that some students need the visual aid to solve a problem, and others can simply solve the problem using mental math.

Retrieved September 29th, 2016 from: Wikipedia 

I found Chapter 11 to be extremely interesting especially as we were working on our problem solving activity this week. It talks about all the different algorithms possible for the four mathematical procedures, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Having two children answer two questions each for my problem solving activity gave me an opportunity to see that there are several different ways to come up with the correct answer, it is personal preference for that student/child.

One thing I really enjoyed this week during our math class was that our peers each had to do a presentation and teach a "mini" math lesson. I appreciated having the opportunity to see that everyone has a different teaching style however I didn't find any less successful than another. We also had the opportunity to work in our table groups while doing these activities and it was interesting to see everyone's different strategies for coming up with the answer.

Every week I have the opportunity to learn something new and see something new, this week I saw the students in my placement work with DreamBox. If you have a minute, take a look at the link and check it out, it is a resource that children can use to play games and learn math at the same time...I could not believe how engaged they were during this activity!

I find myself getting excited about going into my placement to see what new technique my associate teacher will use that week to help her students grasp new things...it is wonderful to be in my position and have someone experienced to learn from and I have definitely been taking notes!

Hope you all read again next week, signing off for now.
Bye!

Week 2 Reflection, Let's Talk About Math

Let's Talk About Math

Let me start by asking this question: do you think there is a negative opinion of mathematics in todays society? This is something I have personally always struggled with because I've "disliked" (for lack of a better word) math nearly my entire life. I have always found it difficult and have never put in as much effort as I should have because I never felt like I had the support that I needed to really just get something. I believe that kids of this generation have a negative opinion of mathematics simply due to the way it is presented to them, you start off being forced to take it, at a very fast paced, sometimes in a classroom with 30 or more other students and it can all become very hectic. There is also the question about how much mathematical knowledge teachers have in todays society, in an article we were provided this week to read, there is a very interesting opening statement that says "With all the talk of teachers’ weak mathematical knowledge, we begin with a reminder that the problem on the table is the quality of mathematics teaching and learning, not—in it- self—the quality of teachers’ knowledge. We seek in the end to improve students’ learning of mathematics, not just produce teachers who know more mathematics" (Simmt, Elaine and Davis, Brent. Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group. 2002). 

For more information regarding this article, please visit this page. 

I personally found this article very beneficial because it states that teachers do not need to know every math equation per say, however they need to know how to teach these equations, which are two different things. 

In class this we were presented with a task, Miss Bunz asked us the simple question "if there are 22 people in the class and everyone was to shake everyone's hand, how many total handshakes would there be?". This seems like a fairly simple question right? So we thought, however there were a few elements that needed to be analyzed before jumping into finding the appropriate solution, you couldn't shake the same person's hand twice, so my hand shake with Miss Bunz would only count as one, hers to me would not count. Troubling right? Right away my brain jumped into, let's look at this as if you're on the outside of a bubble and everyone else is on the inside, if everyone has a turn outside of the bubble, 22 people will have the chance to shake 21 other peoples' hands. 

After having done this activity, we had the chance to go around the room and look at the equations everyone else came up with to solve the problem and I was very surprised to see that nearly every group had come up with the answer a different way, however every group had the same answer. 

This made things quite clear to me when I ask myself "what makes an excellent mathematics teacher?". Being able to accept more than one way to solve the same problem. I believe that teachers who aren't open to change aren't necessarily as flexible when it comes to trying to explain something to a student who may just not be getting something. To finish things off today, I think the big picture is that you can do it, even if you're scared, you just need to be willing to accept new things and change your way of thinking in this never ending evolution. 

Miller, J. Howard. "We Can Do It!" poster (1943). Retrieved from: Wikipedia 

My First Math Blog! EDBE 8P29

Hi everyone!

Who ever thought I would be writing a blog about math? (Not me, that's for sure) But here I am! I want to start by admitting how nervous I am about taking this math course, however after being in lecture for the first time last week, it most definitely did help settle my nerves, at least a little bit.

I was never strong in math, it usually took me a little longer to catch on to what was being taught in the classroom and I always felt pressured to be done as quickly as everyone else because I wasn't as smart as them if it took me a little longer, and let's admit, it can seem embarrassing to a young child in a full classroom!

Retrieved September 14th 2016 from: Pinterest

Having said that, I did have some wonderful teachers throughout my years of schooling who seemed to really just "get me". They could tend to my learning needs and explain things in different ways which helped tremendously on those exhausting problem solving activities. This was not always the case as everyone has their own personal teaching style, but I found those teachers who were passionate about math to be the most helpful throughout my years. 

I am hoping to come into this math course with a fresh mind and no previous "misconceptions" that may hold me back, I need to keep in mind that I have not personally been in my own math class since the 10th grade (8 years ago, yikes!). I want to have an open mind because it is never too late to take on something new and try and conquer something that you previously had difficulties with, because honestly nothing feels better than doing well at something you've previously struggled with!

The readings that were assigned this week were also a sort of "eye opener" for me, as Miss Bunz said in our first class, "you don't need to be a math wiz to be able to teach math", I feel strongly about that, I feel like you just need to be open to change and have a willingness to learn new things. Like it says in the curriculum document we were assigned to read, "the development of mathematical knowledge is a gradual process", I take that as meaning there is always new things to learn. 

The second document proved to be most useful for me, as it is stated in Toward a practical Based Theory of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching, "what many teachers lack is mathematical knowledge that is useful to and usable for teaching". This point is what I am most looking forward to learning throughout this course, what going to be most important and practical when teaching a math class.

I look forward to sharing my learning experience with you throughout the year! Let's have some fun!