Reflection on Battleground Schools

I was surprised that this has been a worldwide problem –“non-mathematics specialists (gym teachers, science teachers and others) teach the majority of mathematics to lower grades”. I remember when I was in Grade 8, I didn’t like math just because of my teacher. She was an English teacher and she had to teach math just to fill up the hours in her time table. It was a nightmare as she was really strict and she was just the way the author described in the “Battleground schools”. She was assigning homework problems straight out of the textbook” and we had to learn the formulas without knowing how it was derived.

Mathematics is a challenging subject and it is used in everyday life. We should develop new ways by using technology, puzzles, quizzes, math fairs and field trips rather than using the traditional method of math teaching. Even though I was taught in the traditional way in Mauritius, I will try my best to use different technics since I learnt a lot from the education course. I just hope that it won’t be a huge problem when the new curriculum will come out as during the New math program as “many teachers could not understand why new ways were being introduced.”

Reflection on micro teaching

I really enjoyed teaching the basic words of French for my micro teaching lesson. It went very well as my colleague, Ian mentioned that I had “very good timing”. I was able to finish my lesson and assess my colleagues in the 10 minutes. I was surprised to see that in 10minutes, you and your students can learn a lot. One of my colleague commented “loved the introduction to different countries that speak French”. I think that it is important to show the students how French became popular and is spoken over 50 countries and on 5 continents.

Also, while I was assessing their prior knowledge, some of them knew few French words like “baguette”, “fromage”, “bonjour” and one knew how to count from 1 to 10. I remember when I was translating “how much” in French which is “combien”, my colleague asked me since “bien” means “fine”, how it is related to “how much”. As a teacher, you should be prepared to any kind of questions.

Moreover, I got the comment from Alison that “the video was cute and the assessment was fun”. I am happy that she felt that way as this was my objective- To promote enjoyment, confidence and proficiency, in the use of French language.

 However, I should be more careful with the background of my slides as Daniel said that it was “hard to read of one of the slides”. Some students have vision problems, so I should always ask in class if everything is clear and visible. Also I should word harder on the Indications of applications as I noticed I am given a “2”. Maybe if I had more time or in my next lesson I could have elaborate more on it.

Lesson plan for micro teaching

Date: 21st October 2015	Duration: 10mins
Topic: To teach the basic words of French	Number of students: 4
Objective: To promote enjoyment, confidence and proficiency in the use of the French language for the purpose of practical communication and when traveling.
Materials Laptop & paper
Prior Knowledge: Ask the students if they know any French word		1 min
Intro/Hook A French greeting song video		1 min
Body: 1.      I will show the students the presentation where they could see a world map with different French speaking countries. In each slide, they will learn a French word and they will try to pronounce it. 2.      The students will interact with each other and tell the word loudly. They can even try to make small sentence for example (My name is…and you?)		6min
Closure Puzzle activity and encourage students to ask questions		2 min
Assessment I will observe the students during the activity

The Giant Soup Problem

From google, I was able to get the dimension of the Campbell Soup which is,

Radius = 1  5/16 inches

Height = 4 inches

Thus their ratio is Radius: Height

                                       1 5/16 : 4

                                     21/16 : 4

                                          21: 64

Also, the radius from a real bicycle, is 100cm

And in the picture, the radius, is 5 cm

So if we have

                         100:5

                           20:1

Now from the picture, the diameter of tank is 6.5cm

Thus, its radius will be 6.5/2 = 3.25cm

In the picture, the length of the picture tank is 12.5 cm

Now using the ratio 20:1

We get the real dimension of the water tank

Radius = 3.25*20 = 65 cm

Height= 12.5 *20= 250cm

Thus volume = pi*r^2 *h

                      =3.14*65^2*250

                     = 3318307 centimeter cube

Imaginary Letters

1^st letter

Hello Mrs. Kaniah,

First of all, I would like to congratulate you for your wedding. While browsing in Facebook, I came across your pictures as we have a common friend. It’s been a while since I saw you but I still cherish the two years we spent together in your math class. You were the one I always admire in my last two years of school and I would like to thank you as today I followed your step and became a teacher. You were not only helpful and smart but also very funny. You were like a friend that my friends and I could share our difficulties in math as well as help us to plan our revision for our final exams. You know what, I stole your secret J which works perfectly in my class now which is singing while teaching the definitions and formulas.

I hope that I will meet you one day even though I heard that you have immigrated to Canada now.

Thank you,

Emi

Reflection on 1^st letter

I really appreciate that Emi followed my step and became a teacher. It’s not an easy job like some other people think. You have to have the passion, to love kids, listen to them attentively and guide them. Only a teacher can take care of 20 -30 kids at a time but a dentist and doctor will only take 1 patient at a time. I try to be friendly with my students because that’s the way they open themselves and share their fear for exams or any difficulties they have after the lesson has been delivered. I try to make my class lively, by using a song to remember the definitions or formulas. I know it’s not easy to have a math class on Fridays after recess. So I try to use activities and even now that I learnt a lot of math/ art learning project that will be very helpful in my math class

2^nd letter

Hey Mrs. Kaniah,

Remember me? This is Tommy from your Math 10^th class from 2005. I was out last week for dinner with my friends and during a conversation, your name came up and how we had a tough time in your math class because of the amount of homework you used to give. I still remember that you used to say that “Practice makes perfect” but I never agreed with this. I think that “Quality of work is better than quantity of work.” I hope that you have reduced the amount of homework for those poor students in your class because for me your class was difficult. Also, sometimes it was very hard to hear you if I was sitting at the back.

Anyway I just wanted to let you know that though you were a good teacher, the amount of homework you gave really affected me during my grade 10 and I hope that you changed your methods so that the learners can enjoy your teaching.

 Hope to see you soon Ma’am,

Take care,

Tommy

Reflection on 2^nd letter

This letter helped me to change my strategies. Now, I should give less homework or even start it as a classwork and finish it at home. I want my students to participate more in class and do some activities to encourage group learning. I will also try to walk around the class so that am audible to everybody. I can do a different sitting arrangement every week so that everybody get a chance to be in front. I am quite worried about this especially after you are done with an activity, it’s hard for students to continue with their classwork. At times students keep talking and I find it a bit difficult to get the attention of all the students.

Reflection on the ‘Math/ Art Learning project’

Objective:

To use different strategies like the math/ art learning project in my math class as this will help to enforce their creativity and enjoy learning math.

Reflective:                            

I had a wonderful time working together with my team to construct the hyperboloid with the skewers. From the very first day, we started sharing our ideas on Facebook and we came across this website http://georgehart.com/skewers/skewer-hyperboloid.html which was very helpful. Since we were able to find all the instructions and saw how exciting and easy it was for the kids to make, we decided to make two hyperboloids, one with twelve skewers (with 5 rows of rubber bands) and one with 16 skewers (with 4 rows of rubber bands). It was very tricky in the beginning but after understanding the pattern, it was quick and easy. We had to be careful as the skewers had sharp points and one of us poke their finger too.

While making it, we were wondering how many rows of rubber bands we would add as the more rows, the more curvature we have. I also observed that the longer the skewer, the greater the angle and more crossing in the hyperboloid.

Since I was working on the extension part, I decided to make an elliptic hyperboloid. It took me some time to make it as the bigger the circle is, the greater the number of holes I had to make in the circle. Here I had 48 holes therefore I used 24 strings.

Both hyperboloids were very interesting to make and cheap too. It would be nice if I can try it with the students of grade 7-8. The Math/ art learning projects will enforce the learners’ creativity and thus the students can enjoy their math class.

Conference

I will attend the BCATML Celebrating Languages conference on Friday 23rd October in Burnaby South Secondary school

Reflection on Maththatmatters

Everybody uses math whether they realize it or not. We apply math in our daily activities and one the first thing people check in the morning is time. After reading the article written by “David Stocker”, I realised that being an educator I should try and teach the values of the society. For example when explaining the chapter on percentage, I should encourage the students to use it when they buy their groceries or any shopping and be aware of their expenses and savings.

I really like the way the author talks about the math that goes behind voting. Teachers should always explain how and where we can use the math rather than just teaching the formulas and definitions. We always want to work for a better grade but we should also expand our knowledge.

These ideas from middle school math can definitely inspire me for my secondary classes. For example while teaching the chapter “probability” I can ask the students how and where we can use it. I know I scored pretty low in my TPI results for social reform but now being more aware, I will try and incorporate new methods. 

Dishes solution

If I had to solve it without using algebra, I would say that since

                                              2 people share 1 plate of rice,

Therefore                              4 people share 2 plates of rice,

                                              8 people share 4 plates of rice,

Which also implies               12 people share 6 plates of rice

Now, if                                  3 people share 1 plate of broth,

                                              6 people share 2 plates of broth,

Which also implies              12 people share 4 plates of broth

For meat, if                            4 people share 1 plate of meat,

                                               8 people share 2 plate of meat,

Which also implies                12 people share 3 plates of meat

Thus 12 people share (6+4+3) dishes

13 dishes is to be shared with 12 people

And since altogether there is 65 dishes, so

We have 13*5 dishes = 65 dishes   for 12 * 5 people = 60 guests

The answer is 60 guests

What effect, if any, does cultural context have?

Well personally I don’t think that the cultural context will affect the solution. I could have done the same example and saying Canada instead of china where the guests are sharing food in Mc Donald

And also you not sure if a guest sharing meat would also eat rice and broth.