Reflection and Refining

When we were told to develop a lesson for 6th grade students using an 8th grade standard and I ran out of time engineering of the lesson. I was nervous and uncomfortable because I had not completely planned the activity. The importance of engineering the lesson has a greater meaning.

Teaching Middle School for the first time

I will be teaching middle school for the first time today. I am looking forward to the experience. We have a simple yet sophisticated lesson that will let the students discover the concept of change with respect to change of something else.
I expect the students will learn how to gather data and create a graph. The sharing activity will let the groups see a different slope because there are several variables.
The journey continues.

Reflection on the Lesson

The big idea: Develop a problematic task that engages the students to use their prior knowledge and understanding to do the following:

• invent multiple strategies
  
• interact with each other and the teacher
• reveal their strategies
  
• having discourse with each other or the teacher to reflect on the strategies
• refining the strategies
• improve their understanding and knowledge

The purpose of the big idea for me is to remember the journey we began four weeks ago and where we are going.

My lessons have to reflect my big idea so my students will always be engaged in learning.

And the journey continues!

Letting Go?

"Letting Go" so our students can learn may sound strange or does it? After many sleepless nights working on the lesson plan and then having to refine it and reflect on it, I have started to understand what task lies ahead. It is all about how we engineer the lesson so "letting go" will be a planned activity. This activity is what the students need so they can develop the understanding they need and we want them to have so we all can move on. I also think "letting go" refers to us letting go of the algorithms and prior knowledge we are so attached to. I see this as a method for me to attain a new understanding of this new math. I am trying to put myself in the students role in class so I can begin this journey.

And the journey continues!

Math in the Media

When asked to look in the media for mathematics, one does not have to look far. Everyday the weather man tells us the average temperature, the historical highs and lows, the average rainfall. The business news tells us about the Dow Jones Industrial Average. They will plot the Dow on a graph and they do the same for the other businesses. The price of gas and the price of crude oil are mentioned almost daily. The taxes we pay everyday and on the 15th of April. The sports dept talks in terms of averages routinely. It would be interesting if the media could not use math on a given day. What would they have to talk about? I think the point of the question is to make us aware that Mathematics is an integral part of our daily lives. Your Thoughts?