Updated Unit Plan ( Assignment 3 Final) 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NKW2S592vce-lF_d3Idx1KA6_AmDBMIF/view?usp=sharing

 

                                                            Course Reflection

Moving towards the end of course, I feel a little bit sad because I will not meet with my classmates and Professor Susan Gerofsky for a while.  I never had such an interactive learning experience before.  When I first came to this education program, I always worked individually and seldom had a chance to participate in group work or project-based learning (I always remember the puzzle course I took at SFU which was really fun).  I think the amount of talking I have done in this single course were doubled compare to my whole university study period (not exaggerating at all).  Through this course, I was able to delve into different ways of learning mathematics which was not the ways I used to think and act.  I was so impressed by the talent and creativity of my classmates.  They are a group of wonderful people with lots of ideas and innovated thinking. I definitely learned a lot from them and I know I will benefit from those knowledge in my future teaching for sure.  Such a connection makes me feel that I won’t be alone in the classroom in my future career.  I know whenever I have questions I can always find my peers and ask their opinions.  In addition, I admire and inspired by Professor Susan Gerofsky’s love for mathematics and art.  I had never thought that math can be connected with art, dance, and weaving etc. (forgive me if I am confused with other courses because all the things we learned here are intertwined and all about mathematics and arts) until I was taking this course.  This connection was wonderfully presented through class readings, presentations and all other activities.  With all these new knowledge in mind, I am confident that I will make my classroom teaching more interesting and dynamic.  I am not afraid of being the most boring teacher any more (as I was afraid of that before).  I am looking forward to working with my math cohort peers and Professor Susan Gerofsky in January and learning more from them as well.

See you all  in 2021!

 Fractions in Food

I am going to teach fractions during my long practicum so I delved into how to make my lessons more interesting and less boring.  I first find the game "Bingo" which I believe will be really interesting in grade 8 class.  Then when thinking of mathematical food, inevitably I was thinking about fractions again.  I think I can have some chocolate or cheese crackers to bring to the class and teach the children fractions by using these food.  There is even a book talking about how to teach fractions through the use of chocolate, called "The Hershey's Fraction Book".

As for the math games I think I am going to play tangrams.  Tangrams is the topic of my final art work in Mathematics for Teachers  (442).  When choosing the topic, I didn't realize that the tangrams will bring such an enriched mathematical learning experience to our students.  It is such an amazing puzzle that I will definitely use in my math classroom in the future. 

342 Unit Plan Link - Grade 8 Fractions 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iRP9GQ9QiYh4jQ9Brhj8WOsMvxLtT56M/view?usp=sharing

 

Blog Post     Due December 02^nd

According to Hewitt, arbitrary is something that you need to memorize. Arbitrary is if someone could only come to know it to be true by being informed by others (Hewitt, 1999). My understanding is that we can assign anything a name arbitrarily and when everyone accepts the name, it becomes a convention and the name becomes the representation of that particular thing.  On the other hand, necessary is dependent upon the awareness of students. Necessary are the things or facts that students have to figure out themselves through their working process.  For me to teach effectively, I think it is important to impart all the arbitrary knowledge to my students but at the same time, I also need to think carefully how to cultivate a learning habit where students can develop their awareness to discover all the necessaries during problem solving process.  I guess the essence of promote “necessary” awareness is to give only required “arbitrary” and encourage students to work on themselves to find out the necessary.  Once they find the necessary, it becomes the new arbitrary.  Following this process, we would see that some of the “arbitrary” were “necessary” at the beginning of their learning process.  I like the idea that a teacher should “provide a task which will make properties accessible through awareness”.  In my opinion, this part can be done by giving more group work or project-based learning experience.  The lecture time will be the time teachers give arbitrary information and the group work or project-based learning is where the awareness of necessary takes place.