Math is Everywhere!

 I found this week’s math mindset modules to be very beneficial. The main reason for this is because many of our students today have the fixed mindset that math is boring. One of the main reasons that students have this fixed mindset about math is because they do not see how math is beneficial to them and they cannot picture using it in their everyday lives. In my younger years, I can recall struggling areas in math and wondering when I would ever us these mathematical concepts in my life. For example, if we were learning measurement, the teacher would not give us everyday examples or explain where and when this knowledge may be useful in our future. We were just expected to remember equations and apply them to the questions in our textbooks. If a student does not know why they are being asked to do something, or how they can apply it to their own lives, then they will be less likely to fully understand mathematics. Therefore, I believe that it is extremely important for teachers to try to incorporate real life examples in their lessons because it creates awareness and allows them to understand how learning these concepts may be beneficial to them in the future. It also can make math more exciting and fun for them, if they are interested in a specific topic that is relative to mathematics.

 Even as an adult, I am still amazing by the idea that math is everywhere. The math modules made me challenge myself to find relevant examples of math in my everyday life. As a sports enthusiast, I came to the realization that I use math every time that I engage in a sporting activity. I also play fantasy sports, which is a type of online game, where participants assemble virtual teams of real players in a professional sport. Your team competes against another team based on the statistical performance of players in the actual game. The image shown below is an example of the different type of statistics that can be kept or calculated within a fantasy game.

basketball.fantasysports.yahoo.com

                                         

 The reason that I chose to discuss the relevance of fantasy and mathematics in my life is because I stumbled upon this program called Fantasy Sports and Mathematics that attempts to introduce students to fantasy sports by implementing it into the mathematics curriculum. I thought that this was a very unique way to increase interest and enthusiasm about math in the classroom. My first question that I had about this program was “would the girls be as interested in this as much as the boys?” but testimonials from the website suggest that “The girls were hesitant at first but really got into it. I love the fact that they don't have to know about football to play the game.” (Study Results, Retrieved October 20, 2017, from http://www.fantasysportsmath.com). I think that implementing something like this into my unit plans and the curriculum could work with some trial and error but ultimately, I think that it would help generate a buzz about mathematics and I think that students would be excited to engage in something like this and hopefully improve student learning of mathematical concepts and ideas in relation to the real world.

www.fantasysportsmath.com

Building Positive Mathitudes

  One of the readings entitled Making Math Children Will Love focused on children’s attitudes toward mathematics. The article suggest that in general, many children have negative attitudes towards math because they feel that mathematics is difficult, boring, unrewarding, and mostly irrelevant. It is important for us, as educators to recognize these attitudes and try to change them to a more positive experience for children, so that their attitudes and achievements in mathematics are progressive. Dr. Lynda Colgan suggests “ we as educators, must turn our attention to resources and strategies that improve students’ relationship with mathematics content and processes and pique students’ motivation, emotion, interest and attention”( Colgan, 2014).  This is something that really stood out to me upon reading this article, as I truly believe that as educators we can make math exciting and fun for all of our students, we just have to find different ways to try and engage them. If educators can create non-traditional approaches, that spark interest and curiosity in mathematics, then I believe that students will become more engaged and will gain an appreciation for mathematics.

    In the classroom this week, we learned about the importance of blended learning. We had the opportunity to visit different stations in the classroom that allows us to explore and find out more about blended learning. I found that I was quite intrigued by the idea of blended learning because I wasn’t able to engage in this much in my learning experience.  Upon exploring the topic of blended learning, I found a few classroom strategies that I would like to use in my placement.

  Student Centers:  Student centers can be effective with blended learning in mathematics because they can provide your students with differentiated instruction through blended learning.  At some stations students that may be struggling could have the opportunity to strengthen their skills and work with the teacher or use Internet sites tailored to mathematical instruction to develop their skills. Other stations could have students work individually or in small groups with a variety of interactive technology based learning programs.

  Flipping the Classroom: This strategy reverses the traditional teacher instructed classroom and involves students watching online lectures or collaborating in online discussions to carry out research.  Typically the research would be done at home and students would return to school and engage in concepts in the classroom with the guidance of their own teacher.

https://goo.gl/27d3F3

  I am looking forward to applying blended learning in my own classroom for many reasons. One of the main reasons is because I never had the opportunity to experience something like this when I was in grade school and I think that it would have had a positive effect on my learning. Another reason is that I want to create fun and interest in mathematics and I think that blended learning will promote student engagement for many students that may negative attitudes towards math because it provides them with the opportunity to have differentiated instruction that is new and exciting and will it hopefully they will gain an appreciation for mathematics.

https://goo.gl/aiSvbD