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!