Reflection Journey on Presentation of Sierpinski Triangle 

This was an interesting group project.  It was the first time I worked with people who are so similar yet so different: we are all Chinese-Canadian women who studied mathematics and now aspire to be teachers.  This was where the similarities ended.   We had various approaches to Cannon’s art and Sierpinski’s Gasket.  Some of us viewed this assignment as a math problem and some of us viewed it as an art problem.  Personally, I could understand the math much better than the art. 

This is an example of project-based learning where students can learn by watching, listening and doing.  It is more relational, situational and hands on learning style. I had never tried until I did this project.  My initial thought was not to search answer from internet and tried to do it by looking at the patterns, however, it was frustrating!  It took me several tries to even begin to make something that looked like self-similar shapes. 

I think the biggest idea from this project is “transformative mathematical education” where we want to connect mathematics to the real world situation.  The potential mathematics learning is not necessarily in math itself but in helping students see that there is a connection between mathematics and a seemingly unrelated field like art.  It also helps students focus on performing a few logical and sequential steps in succession and incorporating this iterative process in their thinking.  Furthermore, students can learn that mathematics doesn’t have to be done with pencil and papers only.  Having done this myself, I can better anticipate, understand, and plan to deliver a better lesson and to minimize students’ frustration.

Although this concept is only directly linked to a few curricular areas, I think I could use this for all my math classes.  A good time to teach this would be if I had one or two classes before winter or spring break where I want to wind down the class yet do something educational.  This project would be a perfect fit under this condition.