I have taught this unit once before, and it was a joy for both my students and me. The thing I liked most about this unit was the opportunity to use physical representations. Students were able to look at physical models of various solids and create their own nets of solids. I also like this unit because it is intuitive to the students. Surface area is seen as the total area that covers any solid and it makes sense that the algebraic formulas are derived from taking the sum of the areas of the faces of a solid. Additionally, volume was interesting for students because things relate to each other. In the future, when I have things better sorted out, I hope to incorporate a science-y lab to determine volumes of various solids.
My experience in with this unit was a good one even though students didn't get to do any lab work. I think including lab work and giving students the opportunity to explore and discover things on their own will make this unit one that I can truly be proud of. This unit lends itself to much exploration and discovery and I want to utilize all of that potential in my future teaching.
Golden Ratio Unit
I have yet to teach this unit, but I have it written. The problem with this unit is that it is difficult to find a spot for it within the 4J and Oregon Standards curriculum requirements. It doesn't teach many new concepts aside from the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio, which are not necessary things to know to advance in life. It's mainly a cool phenomenon that happens in the world and nature around us. It shows how math is connected to natural things even though it seems mechanical most of the time.I want to teach this unit because it involves a lot of lab work and interactive activities rather than just sitting around taking notes. I am also very proud of the final project that the unit entails to wrap up all the discoveries from students. Realistically, I think this unit would be most appropriate for a math club where students are very interested in math and are willing to explore things that might not be too applicable in their lives.
Fractions/Proportions/Ratio Unit
I have taught this unit once before, but it was not well executed. Additionally, I would like to include many new techniques I've learned in the last few months as well as some cognitively-demanding problems. There's always that rule in math about dividing fractions: invert and multiply. But for the longest time, not even I knew why we had to do this. I would like my students to learn precisely why we do this and how dividing fractions works through multiple representations and explanations.
When I taught proportions and ratios for my first time, it was a disaster. Things were not organized well, ideas did not flow well from one to another, and I did not spend enough time and effort clarifying for students' understanding. I did have some good problems, however. I would like to redeem myself, of sorts, from this disaster by teaching proportions and ratios properly. I have gained many problems that would help with discussions and understanding how the concept works. There is one particular problem that I have in mind that can be tweaked in a plethora of ways to teach different levels of the unit.
Utilizing Social Networking in Education
Social networking is seen to many as a distraction and an inefficient use of time. However, I argue that social networking has a spot in education and can be utilized in various ways to help differentiate learning and expand and extend classroom activities. Social networking is associated with keeping connections with friends, colleagues, and family. My classroom, therefore, fits very well in the description of associations of social networking because my classroom can be seen as a team or a small community.
Social networking is well-known for its dependence on writing to communicate to a connected person. Teaching approaches can easily be extended to social networking to both enrich students’ writing ability, communication skills, and content understanding. For instance, a forum or discussion area can be created for any of my classes. Within these forums, there can be sub-forums that can facilitate discussions of specific subjects, topics, key questions, key vocabulary, and even dedication towards homework help. Students are already using social networking services outside of school (and sometimes in school). In fact, it is a large part of their lives as “a recent report published by the National School Board Association (2007) found that 96 percent of youth in this age range have used social networking tools at some time, with their average engagement with them rivaling time spent watching TV at 9 hours a week” (Klopfer, Osterweil, Groff, Haas, p. 10). Developing curriculum and activities within a social networking service will create an ease of transition for students and relativity as well. I will be using Edmodo at www.edmodo.com/dhuang42 as my social networking site.
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| Edmodo combines ideas from multiple blogging and social networking websites. |
Social networking is designed to keep connections open. By utilizing the services of social networking, educators can keep classroom connections open during and after school, inside and outside of school. Students can continually access the curriculum and resources through communication from me and his/her peers. There are some teachers who create forums especially for a certain class, but social networking can be used as the same service. Additionally, students are already using social networking services so the transition will be smooth and access will be a minimal concern.
Privacy, multi-tasking, and security are always a concern with social networking and using digital technology with internet access. A full lesson, and perhaps unit, will address any security concerns that my students will potentially face when using the internet and privacy settings for the given social networking website will be adjusted together as a class. As with using computers with internet access, students have access to many distractions and I am well aware of their multitasking skills. I will make sure that their multitasking is resourceful and not a distraction to their learning through careful placement of computers to monitor at all times with ease. If students are not on task or misbehaving while using computers, they will need to stay after class for 5 minutes to respond thoughtfully to a discussion post on the social networking site.
Social networking is seen as something that is consuming much of the time most students spend on the internet. Instead of spurning the use of social networking, I will be finding ways to create advantages with it. Social networking connects us with those we see every day as well as those who we haven’t seen in years. Such a powerful communication tool should be seen as an asset, not a liability.
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4J Mathematics Curriculum
