Week 2 Reflection
Week 2 Reflection:
Hey there, welcome back to my blog. Today we had our second
session of math class and it was intriguing. I came into the teacher’s college expecting
to do math problems every session, but my assumptions were wrong. So far in class, we discussed how to understand and solve math problems, the different
strands of mathematics, attitudes regarding math, and the course syllabus. Our instructor
played jeopardy in class and I really liked how engaging it was. It was the
perfect way to teach and also test the entire class on the important information contained in the course syllabus. As I looked through the course syllabus and Sakai, I
felt very overwhelmed with the amount of work that has to be done for
the week. It might not actually be a lot, but when accumulating homework
from other classes it became a little overwhelming. I also think that since I
have been out of school for a bit, I just need a couple of weeks to adjust and
once I get the hang of everything, I will feel better. A technique that would
be helpful is to review and go over the PowerPoints and lessons before coming
into class. This way I will be able to stay on track and know exactly what we are discussing in class.
Something that really resonated
with me during class was how important a positive attitude is when working on
math. As kids, we have been conditioned to think about math with a negative
connotation. Math was hard to do which you were either good at or you
were a lost cause. Growing up I always felt that teachers would only pay
attention to the kids that were good at math rather than the ones that were struggling.
As an educator, it should be our responsibility to make sure that every student
is given an equal opportunity to learn. I was not the greatest at math growing
up but in Grade 10 one of my teachers really pushed me to do better. This is
when my attitude towards math completely changed and I started enjoying doing
math. When I took math in my undergrad, the technique that I used to do well in
the course was doing my homework before attending class. I would teach
myself the lesson before going in, just so I could get a better understanding
once I was in class. This week we were sent an email containing two EQAO questions
which I am pretty excited to work on. I am excited because I remember the fear I
would have grown up when it came time for EQAO. I want to get rid of that
fear and also be able to help out my students in the future with the anxiety
they might have. I am really enjoying having math as a course and cannot wait
to learn more.
Going through the Ontario Math Curriculum for Grades 1-8 got me to reflect on what I learned in those grades myself. I found the math curriculum to be a lot different than the literacy curriculum, in the sense that every grade typically learns new objectives and forms of math. For example in Grade 5, students learn about "demonstrate an understanding of proportional reasoning by investigating whole-number rates" whereas in Grade 6 they focus on "identify and describe the location of an object, using the cardinal directions, and translate two-dimensional shapes". For Literacy, the objectives mainly the same.
Going through the Ontario Math Curriculum for Grades 1-8 got me to reflect on what I learned in those grades myself. I found the math curriculum to be a lot different than the literacy curriculum, in the sense that every grade typically learns new objectives and forms of math. For example in Grade 5, students learn about "demonstrate an understanding of proportional reasoning by investigating whole-number rates" whereas in Grade 6 they focus on "identify and describe the location of an object, using the cardinal directions, and translate two-dimensional shapes". For Literacy, the objectives mainly the same.
((September 19, 2019). Bitmoji. Retrieved from (https://www.bitmoji.com/account_v2/))
“Mathematics .” Ontario Curriculum, Queen’s Printer for Ontario, www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/c urriculum/elementary/math18curr.pdf.
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