A Final Reflection on My Learning

I would like to welcome you back to my Math blog... For the very last time...

We have finally approached the end of the semester, and I feel as though I have grown so much in regard to how I feel about teaching mathematics. I have learned new activities through both lectures and through my peers math activity presentations and now have so many new activity ideas that I can implement in my classroom when I am a teacher. Not only did I learn a variety of new information and techniques, but I also had so much fun being in this class. The activity presentations were always very engaging and it was fun to be able to work with our peers and work on the activities together.

The last few classes were spent working on developing a math lesson plan, either individually or with a peer. I chose to work with a peer, and since we are both in an intermediate classroom for our internship, we decided to create a grade 7 lesson plan for measurement. 

I would be lying if I said we didn't find this to be difficult. It was hard! It is difficult to think of how to make mathematics engaging at the older levels as the math content begins to become more difficult and complex. In addition, I want to make it age appropriate for them and don't want them to do any activities that they might feel are childish. I often find myself relating mathematic units such as measurement, back to science and finding ways in which I can incorporate more hands on learning in the Minds on portion of my lessons.

and that's just what we did!

We decided to do a grade 7 lesson plan on the volume of prisms, and the concept that two prisms can have the same surface area. So for the minds on portion of our lesson plan, we decided to do a demonstration where we would fill 3 different prisms of the same or similar volume, with water, and would pour it out into a measuring cup for the class to help them grasp the idea. Students could even come up to the front of the class and do the demonstration by themselves as a more hands on approach.

The Makerspace Event

For our week 11 math class, we participated in a makerspace workshop. 

what is a Makerspace?

a markerspace is a creative space in which people gather to tinker, create, invent, and learn. The maker movement was borne out of the increasing number of people who creatively engage in both physical and digital fabrication to solve existing problem or need and to share their design and making with a community of like-minded innovators (Hughes, 2017). The makerspace encourages students to participate in STEM activities, This emphasizes that every child can become an innovater.

I had so much fun participating in the makers space workshop. Our task was to go to different stations and see how these stations could relate back to the mathematics curriculum. The stations my group went to were woodworking, beading, and origami. We found many connections back to the patterning and geometry curriculum. Here are some pictures from our day at the workshop:

I am very excited to now implement makerspace type stations and learning into my lesson plans as a teacher!

Thanks for reading,

Sincerely,

Nicole ;)

References

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/meaningful_making_en.pdf