Week 15 Reflections

After thinking about how I could have changed my statistics lesson, the only thing that I would have changed is possibly the card activity. I feel like I should have had all of the cards have the same pattern so that all students would have had the same opportunity to memorize all of the letters. This way there would have not been a control on the activity because after thinking about it I think that the card activity was an experiment because of the two different patterns. Other than that I feel like my lesson went pretty well. I think that my classmates like the guided discovery approach to my lesson rather than direct instruction. I think that is one thing that I have learned through this class and MATHS 393 that guided discovery is a very important teaching method. So many times direct instruction is only used and this puts all students at a disadvantage because they are never discovering anything independently. I think direct instruction still needs to be used in many circumstances, but I think using guided discovery is very important in every mathematics classroom.

The difference between teaching my module and my statistics lesson is that I felt like I was just giving the class worksheets to complete for my module, but I felt like I was in charge when I was teaching my statistics lesson. I think I feel this way because for my module I was working with two other people, but for my statistics lesson I was solely in charge of presenting my lesson to the class. I think when presenting in the TinkerPlots group, I did not feel like I needed to take charge because I did not want to seem like a dominant personality out of Andrew, Steve, and I. Knowing that I was in charge of my statistics lesson, it felt much more natural to take charge of the class.

Week 14 Stats Lessons

The two statistic lessons that I am going to reflect on are Ashley and Andrew's. I thought Ashley did a really good job explaining her topic even though there was not much material for her to cover. I thought she did a really good job using the random numbers chart, and I thought that she seemed very well prepared when she was speaking and discussing information pertaining to her topic. I felt like she was very natural when it came to her presenting the material, and it showed me that she will be a really good teacher in the near future.

I also thought Andrew did a really nice job with his presentation. I thought he did a really good job at the beginning explaining confidence intervals, and I really enjoyed the fact that he got the class involved with the topic he presented. His use of the TI-Inspires to help us all have a better understanding of confidence intervals was very useful, and I think it gave us a better idea on what we were learning about. He then showed us an applet that was useful, along with showing us on the board and on the chart that he gave us how to find the confidence intervals in different situations. Overall, I was very impressed with his presentation.

Week 10 Grade

This week I deserve a 5/5 on the module work/review activity because I helped my group organize our activities into modules depending on what mathematical topic each activity was discussing. As a group, I think we are feeling more and more confident that our modules are getting to the point where they could be effective for a teacher to use in a middle school/high school classroom. I have also been working on the Geogebra module in order to help Elizabeth and Ashley improve the activities that they have created or found. I plan on giving them the hard copies of the corrections and observations that I have made of their activities on Tuesday.

Week 8 Reflection: Fathom

After working on many activities using Fathom, I really believe that this program can be an effective tool in a middle or high school classroom. The first thing that I really like about Fathom is how simple it is to display data accurately on a graph. I really like how easy it is to change the graph from a dot plot to a histogram by just going to the mini-toolbar in the top right hand corner of the graph and changing it. I also like how I can use summary tables to display more than attributes of data at a time. In the third task, it was really valuable to be able to show gender, place, and age at the same time, and to compare. The third thing I like about Fathom is that it displays central measures of the data such as median and mean very nicely, and it is very easy to evaluate the information that they are displaying. Along with this, it is really nice to be able to use different formulas in order to show mean, standard deviation, maximums, minimums, etc. Fathom has a lot of cool features that I am continually learning about, and I have really enjoyed spending time getting to understand this program.

Week 7 Reflection: Geogebra

Before this week, I had only used Geogebra in MATHS 202 to do a few small activities. After this week, I can see how this program would be very beneficial for middle and high school students. I really liked using this program because it allows students to see how beneficial it is to see certain shapes and polygons, but Geogebra is special because it also allows students to understand certain algebraic qualities that these geometric figures have by displaying the slopes and equations that these figures have. I really thought that Elizabeth and Ashley did an excellent job writing a module that allowed us to slowly get used to the program by doing simple operations before we dove into more difficult operations. I also thought it was really cool how Geogebra used sliders to show certain qualities of functions because it would allow students to have a much deeper understanding of how certain variables of equations of functions can change the graphs of a function depending on its numeric value. The only thing that I observed that would make this program a little bit more difficult to use especially at the middle school level is that the instructions for this module tended to be somewhat lengthy which may give middle school teachers a headache when trying to keep students focused on these activities. As far as high school students, I think that they would pick up what is going on very quickly. Overall, I was very impressed with the detail and organization of this module, as well as the program that was being used.

Week 6 Tasks

I write about Week 6 (four days late SORRY!!!) with mixed feelings. I will start with what I thought was positive about my week. I really enjoyed the reading because it reminded me how important the use of graphing calculators are in the classroom. Both activities presented in the article I thought could be used in my future classroom, so I enjoyed learning about the reading. The next thing that I enjoyed was getting to choose two activities (Amazing Profit and Linear Alignment) on Illumination that I thought I would use in my future classroom. I decided to choose two activities dealing with slope since I am going to teach middle school and will more than likely dealing with a lot of algebra related topics. The two activities that I found were very informative, yet very simple and to the point, and I liked that because it would allow me to incorporate these two activities into my future lesson plans because it would only take one to two days to use each one of these activities.

The thing that frustrated me the most with my week was my attempt to find activities that I will use on the module I will be making for Week 7. This is not to say that I think that there are not any activities that I can find or make to make a good module. But the two activities that I found and completed (Scoring Points and Free Throws) were in the TinkerPlots workbook that I borrowed, and honestly they were horribly constructed. There were questions that were so vague and had certain answers that really would not benefit the student learning them that I would finish the lessons and just have no idea how these activities were supposed to benefit a student at all. What I have learned this semester is the importance of detail when using technology in mathematics, but these activities left me with the impression that that was the complete opposite goal that they had. My goal for Week 7 is to make my own activities or to find some more equipped activities that will allow me to make a module that is worth learning about. This week has shown me that there are some TinkerPlot activities that were made when the program was first discovered that did not get tested very well. I am hoping that through the module I plan to make that I can make more detailed activities than the ones that I just completed.

Week 6: Reaction to Online Classrooms

When I learned that we were going to be hearing from a math teacher that teaches online only, I was surprised because I did not think about those options being available or even existing. I just assumed the kids primarily go to a public or private high school or they are home schooled. I did not think about kids that are home schooled actually having instructors that teach them online. I will admit that I find it strange that someone would want to teach online because to me that just means that you are more interested in the material than the kids that are being taught. As much as I love math, I am going into teaching because I want to have a positive influence on young teenagers lives. I absolutely love the energy and enthusiasm that they have for life, and I am excited about the prospect of waking up every day and being excited to go do my job. When he said that he had some negative experiences in the classroom, I was not surprised because I expect to encounter things in the classroom that I am not going to be pleased with, but it is how one responds to those situations that shows what type of teacher they really are.

In Mike's situation, I am happy that he found a job doing something that he really enjoys, which is teaching math. It was easy to see that he really enjoys teaching online, and teaching higher level math to students that want to be challenged. It seemed to me though that he may have had a tougher time enjoying teaching in public schools because he had to deal with both the kids that wanted to learn and the kids that did not want to learn (as much.) One of the challenges that I look forward to when I become a teacher is to find ways to help students that have more trouble with math so that they can go through there life not feeling limited when it comes to having mathematical knowledge. I know that this will not be easy, but I look forward to the challenges that I will have with these students. I believe that early on in teaching, I will run into some bumps in the road, and I will have to learn how to adjust to those bumps, but I think that once I have some experience under my belt I will have some really good ideas on how the majority of middle grade students like to learn math. I do not think there will be one way in particular, but I think I will know different ways to benefit each student's mathematical abilities.

The speculations that I have made about Mike may not be true. This is just my opinion based on listening to him talk last Thursday. I think it is awesome that there are people that are talented enough to teach students online because I do not think I would be as effective as a teacher that way, but he seems to be really good at it. Overall, I thought it was good to hear from someone who was in a different situation in teaching math, and hearing how their experiences have been in their situation with teaching mathematics.

Week 5: My "aha" Moment

My "aha" moment with my technology was downloading data off of the internet and putting it into TinkerPlots. It is something that wouldn't seem like that big of a deal, but just seeing how simple it was really was, and how beneficial it could be not only in a math classroom but in other areas of life was very intriguing to me. It was cool to see that a program that is primarily used in middle grade levels could be used in real life when looking at sports statistics, body characteristics, backpack weights, and presidents ages. I think this is why TinkerPlots would be a very effective tool to use in a middle school classroom, and with all of the data that already comes with TinkerPlots along with millions of pieces of data on the internet, I think it will be a very effective tool in my future classroom.

Reflection Week 5: My attitude towards technology in mathematics

Before I was in this class, I remember all of the great ideas and strategies that I was planning on using in my future classroom in order to make it successful for my students. I planned on having fun activities for my students which would allow them to work together in small groups. I also planned on not lecturing all of the time, and allowing my students to come up with their own ideas on certain topics in ways that they learned them best. Although I still plan on using these same strategies in the next year or two when I am in the classroom, I have also came to the point where I think using technology in future math classroom will be very beneficial to my students as well.

Before I entered this class, I had never considered using technology too much, and even the first few weeks of class I really was not taking it into consideration. But after hearing some of our online meetings with teachers that are currently in the classroom today, I have began to change my mind about technology. I am not saying that I think technology should be used every single day in the classroom, and should take the place of other teaching strategies (lecturing, group work, student led activities), but I think that it should have some part of the learning process in the classroom. I felt like Mr. Pinkerton had a good grasp of how to use technology in math, and it seemed like he understood how his students were going to handle the use of this technology. He understood that every one of his students may not benefit from it, but he also realized that some of his students that were not benefiting from normal classroom strategies that he was using would benefit from seeing how math can be used through certain technology.

So after five weeks in this class, I am currently thinking that I will use technology a few times a month when it comes to the whole class using technology, and allowing them to complete activities that they would enjoy on these computer programs. I think that it needs to be something that is student led, and is fun for them as well. I think a lot of times we try to keep students in a box way too much, and I think allowing students to use technology is a great time to just let them loose a little bit so that they can learn and explore the way that feels most natural to them! Hopefully this will allow them to grasp something about mathematics that they never would have understood in a normal classroom setting!

Week 4 Reflection

Week 4 was a different week than usual because I was working primarily with Terrapin Logo, which was interesting to say the least. One thing that I wish I was better at is learning how to use computer programs quicker, so when I made my quilt on Logo it took a little while. It could be that I am a step slow with new programs, and I want everything to be exactly the way I have it envisioned in my mind that results in the process taking so long. But after I completed all of my activities on Logo, I felt much more knowledgeable about the program than I had at the beginning of the week. I also enjoyed the reading, and I felt like a lot of the principles related to how I felt when I was working with Logo because even though it took me quite a while to complete my assignments, the extra practice and the time that I spent learning how to correct my mistakes made me feel much more comfortable with Logo by the end.
On top of Week 4 material, I also had to make up some of my Week 2 work after I had completed some of my Week 3 and 4 work. I experimented with Jing and made some videos showing how to do certain procedures using Geometer Sketchpad and Terrapin Logo. I found out that Jing is not very difficult to use, and that it will be very easy to use in the future for this class and my future classroom. I also did my report on VoiceThread and saw what a great program it is.
As of right now, I am looking forward to taking Sunday off for this class because I think I am finally caught up after being behind all week! The good thing is I feel like I learned quite a bit this week which is encouraging!

Week 3 Reflection

This Week 3 reflection is coming a little late due to getting behind on some of my work from Weeks 2 and 3, but I am caught up after spending around 20 hours on this class this week. This week has helped increase my level of comfort with TinkerPlots due to the articles that I read and reflected on, and the activity/lesson that I made using an instructional video of off keypress.com. The two articles that I read helped me understand that TinkerPlots is a program that can be very useful in the middle school classroom. I believe this to be true because it is a program that can give them structure mathematically with data analysis, probability, and statistics, but it also allows them to explore how to evaluate and discover data patterns and trends on their own without structure.
Middle school students today are more technologically advanced at that age than any other generation in history, and I think they would be able to gain a lot from TinkerPlots if the time was made to use it.The reason that I believe this is due to the fact that since there are a variety of different data sets with different topics, they could find one that they relate to, and they could use that data in order to benefit them mathematically. Also, since Tinkerplots is very colorful I think that they would be intrigued with how it looks, and would enjoy doing math more than if they were looking at a textbook and making a bar graph on graph paper. One of the most beneficial things about TinkerPlots in my opinion is that it is simple, and is made so that all middle school aged would be able to gain something from it. Sometimes mathematical technology computer programs can be to overwhelming for students with limited mathematical knowledge, but that is not the case with TinkerPlots, which makes in my mind will make it enjoyable to use for students and educators.
When it comes to my own knowledge of TinkerPlots I feel pretty comfortable with constructing material after making my own lesson this week. Given I did use the TinkerPlots instructional website videos to help construct my lesson, I feel that if I had made a lesson on a simpler topic that I would be more than capable to. The first lesson that I made though was a little more difficult so I used a video to make sure that the questions I was asking were at a middle school level. It is really cool that in only a month, I have gained sufficient knowledge on my technology, and I can not imagine how comfortable I will be by the end of the semester!

Week 2 Reflections

After week 2, I am really feeling comfortable with using TinkerPlots and how to create activities using the program. By sitting in on Professor Roebuck's class, I feel like I have figured out a few of the minor details that I was having with TinkerPlots. One was figuring out how to change the values of the x and y axes and the bin numbers on those axes. I also learned about how I can use the count button along with learning how I can use the Label Key, and also learning how to move and adjust that key on the graph. I also benefited from learning about the differences between categorical and numerical data, and how that affects the color in the data key.
I really feel like observing Professor Roebuck was beneficial to deepening my understanding of how to use TinkerPlots. Completing activities and watching tutorials are very helpful, but seeing things in person and getting in depth explanations of how to do things. This is how I benefited in Professor Roebuck's class because he took his time explaining things, and since it was being taught to students in MATHS 202, it was slow paced enough for me to pick up on things that I may not have otherwise. One thing that I hope that I can communicate to my future students if I do use a program like TinkerPlots is how the program can be applied in a classroom in a more useful way. I did notice that the class was pessimistic when using the program because they did not see the point in why they should use the technology in the classroom. I think this is due to many elementary education majors having a negative view of mathematics, and it is one of their least favorite things to teach in many cases. One thing that is really important for not only elementary education majors, but secondary majors, is the importance of technology in the classroom when using mathematics. Many students struggle with mathematics (including many non-math education majors), and using technology when using mathematics can be a break through for some students who struggle or do not relate to how mathematics is used. Many students benefit so much from calculators and mathematics computer programs, and I think the more educators understand the importance of technology in the classroom, the better things will be.
I also really enjoyed the reading for the week because it showed me examples of how to use Sketchpad in my future classroom. I never thought too much about displaying proofs on mathematical computer programs, and so seeing specific examples of how to do these proofs is very beneficial to myself. I also really liked how it was almost completely student lead because it allows students to learn and benefit from the good and bad things that they do in their specific proofs. So overall I really enjoyed what I learned about this week, and I just hope that I can continue to learn more and more as the weeks go on!

After week 1, I would lie if I said I did not feel somewhat overwhelmed. 8 to 10 hours in one class is a lot with my busy schedule, but I have done my best to complete my work to the best of my ability. I began by going to class and then I emailed Professor Doug Roebuck the next day to find out when I would be able to observe his class to learn more about TinkerPlots. I then went ahead and created my Google document, and also sent in my email address on Blackboard so that everyone can contact me if need be. I took the electronic assessment quiz, which was not too hard based on the knowledge that I gained from taking statistics last semester. I created a powerpoint slide with a picture of myself, and then I completed the week 1 reading, which really helped improve a lot of views that I had on technology. Before I thought of something that may be somewhat inconvenient for me to use in the classroom, but after reading that article I began seeing the use of technology as a necessity to reaching all of the students that I will have in my classroom one day. 

  I then began my search for improving my knowledge of TinkerPlots. Other than using it a few times in MATHS 202, I had no other previous experience with it. So I had a decent understanding of the program. The first thing that I did was watch 30 minutes of tutorials going through different things that TinkerPlots can do when evaluating data. I learned some really important information from those, especially when it came to learning how to insert data into a card from other programs. After completing that, I spent some time opening up Fetch so that I could put my files in my ilocker. I then went through and spent some time working on activities using TinkerPlot. I have found that I understand most information that TinkerPlots displays, and I learned some new things too. I learned how to use the fuse circular and fuse rectangular icons on Tinkerplots, as well as how to use the reference lines to mark certain measures of data such as mean, median and mode. I also learned how to put a key on the graph and how to evaluate that. It was also really important to learn about how to measure categorical and numerical data by looking at the color shades listed in the data information table. The "Cats" activity that I did was the most useful activity that I did because of how indepth it went with using TinkerPlots.

  Because I wanted to try to reach a distinguished level of evaluation this week, I started looking for information on how to learn how to use Geogebra. I watched two tutorials, one in which went through the basics of Geogebra (points, lines, parallels etc.), and after I watched that tutorial I did an activity that I understood fairly well. I then watched a video that showed me how to use Geogebra to make a line that moves on a graph that can be posted on the internet. I never knew how to post something on the internet through a mathematical program like this, but it showed me how to do that in this video by using the export button. I enjoy Geogebra, but it has a little more depth to it then TinkerPlots does. Geogebra requires knowing the syntex if one plans to use advanced knowledge on an activity.

  So after week 1, I feel confident about my abilities to learn how to adjust to new technologies that I will encounter in the future not only as a pre-service educator, but in the near future as an educator. Although I am somewhat stressed about the amount of time that I spent this weekend working on all of this material, I feel better after getting a week under my belt because I DEFINITELY plan on starting earlier on the material next week to make things easier on myself, and also so I can do an even better job on my work. I am also looking forward to getting positive and negative feedback on the material that I have presented so that I can understand what I need to continue doing, and so that I can see what I need to improve on. Overall, I am excited about what I will learn this semester!

Week 1 Reflections