Week 11 Reflection

Week 11 Blog post:

Welcome back to my fifth and last blog post. I cannot believe that this semester is already coming to an end. In this blog, I wanted to summarize what we did in class the past week and also reflect on my overall experience in math class.

This week we focused on data management and probability. We started off class with final learning activity presentations. David and Mackenzie both did a really good job presenting their learning activity and made them super interactive. I really liked Mackenzie’s presentation because she made the activity relevant to the class. It was a great way to increase student engagement. Her learning activity was a lesson on how to properly create bar graphs and the topic she chose to create a bar graph on was on the student’s favourite class this semester. She also listed out the advantages and disadvantages of a bar graph. I liked that we created one as a class and then created one by ourselves. While going through the Math Ontario Curriculum I was surprised to realize that creating bar graphs begins in Grade 2.

After the learning activity presentations, the game forums groups presented their favourite games that their group explored. Almost every single group had very different games that they explored for their forums. I really liked the concept of the game prodigy that The ACUTIES presented. Prodigy is a web-based math game and it reminded me of a Pokémon game that I grew up playing but involved math instead. Prodigy is a great way of engaging students in an interactive activity and best of all, it is free. Students are learning and answering math questions while having fun. It creates a positive learning environment when teaching math. The game also follows the overall and specific curriculum expectations and provides assistance for students who need additional help. Teachers also have access to see their student’s progress and use the game as an assessment tool. I definitely see myself in the future implementing a lot of the games that were shared, in my classroom. To reflect upon group work for forum posts, I thought it was really great that we all got a chance to work on different skills due to the different roles assignment each week. Being the connector, it really pushed me to explore and familiarise myself with the curriculum document and now, depending on the grade, it is much easier for me to look up overall and specific expectations.

To conclude I just wanted to share a couple of experiences or lessons that really made me like math class. I really valued the growth mindset talk that Wendy gave us during our first couple of classes. I believe that teaching students to have a growth mindset is so important especially when it comes to math. I often find myself using the term “growth mindset” as a way of reinforcing positive behaviours in students at placement. Whenever a class student is frustrated with an assignment or project and gives up, I find myself constantly telling them that they can do it and asking them guided questions to help them achieve their goals. I also liked doing the learning activity presentations because there were so many great lessons and activities that my classmates shared. It was nice seeing the different styles of teaching. Being the presenter, I also got a chance to work on my presenting skills and also take notes of my peers about things I should and should not do during presentations.