Blog 2

Teaching reformed mathematics is legit. At first I was worried that my previous knowledge with formulas was going to get in the way of accommodating to this new approach but everyday I am getting a little more confident in understanding the materials. I now understand that learning mathematic formulas are only the tip of the iceburg; you must be able to experience the frustrations and attempts by trial and error individuals went through in order to achieve a formula. We went over some decent examples but I do agree with everyone else that we need more... and perhaps an opportunity to observe this style of instruction in a real classroom setting. Other then that my only concerns with teaching mathematics is the time it is going to take to develop a meaningful mathematics curriculum that is going to motivate the students on both intrinsic and extrinsic levels. This is going to have to be a collaborative effort among educators; exposing children at an early age so they can develop personal meaning and problem solving persistence with mathematics. This way we can defeat the number one statement with students in math class,
"I don't know how to do this."

Blog 2

While many aspects of this class are difficult because of the new and necessary way of thinking, I find it to be exciting all at the same time. It is refreshing to find myself in a classroom learning something I've never considered possible, yet seeing that it is not only possible, but incredibly vital. Professor Reins has driven his point home (in my mind) as to WHY classroom teachers need to present new knowledge to students in this way. The struggle I have up to this point is believing in myself, knowing that I struggle with this challenging subject, as well as believing that I am capable of teaching students in such a thorough and intellectual way. I will continue to do what I can in this class to successfully transform my thinking into that of a confident and prepared instructor - ready to change the way mathematics is presented. I believe in Reform Based Mathematics because I feel strongly that, had I been taught math in this way, I would be much more skilled, confident, and prepared to teach it to others.

Blog 2

So for in math concepts I have started to understand the importance of teaching mathematics through a different approach and I also understand the purpose of the material thus far. I do see the meaning and effectiveness of reformed-based teaching in mathematics, but I struggle with the application of this. Although we have observed this method and will have a chance to demonstrate with our own lessons I feel that we need more experiences seeing other teachers in the classroom setting apply this method to mathematics. The observing of Dr. Reins has helps me to see the importance of teaching the actual concept rather than teaching a formula with symbols and numbers that become more memorized than understood. But if I had one suggestion it would be more observation time in a mathematics classroom. I will say that at times the homework and class activities put me at a blank wall, where I just don’t know what to do. I feel that working with classmates on these assignments definitely helps and it is very beneficial because we learn from one another. I am excited and interested to see how the lessons go and can’t wait to prepare my own.

blog 2

Up to this point, I have found myself struggling to learn math with a new approach. I do see the meaning and effectiveness of the reform-based approach Dr. Reins has been using in class, however I find myself becoming frustrated quite frequently. I think it is extremely important that we are learning this new approach to teaching in order to make learning content, particularly math, important to our future students. In this math course I have learned new things about old concepts that I have been learning about throughout my education. Mainly, I have learned the focus and meaning behind many formulas, such as area. The part that becomes frustrating for me is learning a new method in a manner that becomes tedious, especially when I know the simple way to find the answer that is much shorter. I believe this frustration is from working backwards, had I been taught the meaning behind the formulas in the first place I feel this process would make much more sense to me know. With that being said, this helps me to see the importance of teaching the actual concept rather than teaching a formula with symbols and numbers that become more memorized than understood. Another frustration I have is not necessarily with this class, but with the education program at USD in general. I feel that I should have been taught how to teach this way from the beginning, rather than having this one class my senior year showing me this approach to teaching. I will try my hardest to teach this way in my classroom because I do see the importance, however I feel that other professors should be introducing this approach as well so that we, as future teachers, are more prepared and comfortable.

February Blog

I can understand all of the purposes of the material we have covered so far in this course. I just feel like now we need opportunities to apply what we have learned. I do wish we had more experiences where we obesrve a math classroom and see how these new methods of instruction that we are learnign about are being applied. The activities just seem frustating at times but that is only because I have never worked well with Geometry. However, I feel like these methods we learned in the past month make more sense to me than any of the 20-some formulas I have been taught in the past! I am interested to see how the lessons go an dhow difficult creating the lesson will be when the time comes closer. I agree with Ali R., more practice with this material is definately needed! If I had any suggestions, it would be to have more opportunities to observe and practice math instruction.

Blog #2

New Findings and New Implications

Throughout the semester, I've gone back and forth from completely struggling with some of the concepts to feeling confident in my math abilities. However, after getting acclimated to the CGI approach used in this class, I feel myself a little more confident with each passing day in class. Inititally, I was frustrated with the fact that I just didn't understand what was going on. However, it is very reassuring now that I understand the approach and am now beginning to think "outside the box". I also firmly believe in the use of manipulatives in teaching. Being a highly visual learner, myself, I find that the use of manipulatives is extremely beneficial in helping to bridge the gap for students. So, throughout the course of this class I've found that using a different approach to instruction and using manipulatives are two very successful ways for students to understand mathematical concepts. I look forward to what the rest of this class and semester has to offer.

New Insights and Implications

I am finally starting to see the importance of reform-based teaching. I realized that all of these concepts we are developing, I had no idea why they were in place before. I learned that in elementary school I just went through the motions to arrive at the right answer without even understanding why I did what I did. Now, I can hardly remember how to do any of that anyways. I think I still have a lot of practicing left to do before I could actually implement this into my classroom, but I do know now that this is a style I would prefer to teach. The critical thinking skills required for this course are the skills that I have always lacked. Being able to think critically in math would also lead to the ability to think this way in other subjects. I do hope that watching my classmates teach their LPU's to the class helps me feel more comfortable teaching this in my own future classroom.

Blog 2

I can honestly say that math was never a huge struggle when I was in grade school. There were always some weak spots of mine, but overall I usually did very well in math. However, most of my teachers were teaching it in the "traditional" I show you the problem and formula, then I do a worksheet. I have struggled through some of the activities in class because my prior knowledge has built a wall that is tough to get over. But, I have really come to like the word develop, and having students develop problems and ideas rather than giving worksheets with numerous problems. As I think about this, I wonder why all of us in the cohort had to sit through two semesters of Math Concepts and learn formulas, and do massive amounts of problems, and we cannot even remember them now, much less when we get into the classroom. I really like the way class is set up, and how it is developing our math skills and theories. I really hope to use this way of teaching in my future classroom. It will take time to develop, but it will eventually happen, and students will be much better critical thinkers too!

Blog # 2

New Insights and Their Implications - What did you learn from your peers, from the instructor, and/or the readings, about elementary school students, and/or about yourself, and the teaching and learning of math and what are their implications to teaching and learning mathematics?

Since our last blog, I have become more confident in my ability to understand mathematical concepts. I have always felt that the pieces that make up mathematics are beyond my comprehension and too complex for my understanding. I have come to find that through class activities, I am actually enjoying finding out how easy it can be to understand where formulas come from and how in-depth looks at common math misconceptions can actually create a fuller understanding of the subject. I feel like I am learning how math works from the bottom up and not just what needs to be done to get the answer. Because of this new understanding, I feel that if I can understand what is going on I can teach it to someone else. I am slowly gaining the confidence to try new things in mathematical learning without the fear of having the wrong answer.

Blog 2

As we move through the semester I am finding that this class is getting easier. I have a better understanding of your expectations and what we need to gain out of this course. I have gain new knowledge about how formulas are made and how to solve problems without using the formula. It helps me when we use manipulative in class while we are working on examples. I believe that manipulative would help students better learn the concept of math if they were used more in the classroom. This class has me completely engaged and I look forward to learning more throughout the rest of the semester.

Blog 2

Personal Concerns and Next Steps

Math has always been a struggle for me. I have found myself very confused numerous times in class. Since math is something that I am not very good at, it is hard learning new strategies and thinking outside of the box and thinking differently from what I am used to. Although sometimes I feel very lost, I feel that I am slowly making progress in my math skills. I really like how many examples we do in class and the different ways we can find answers to things. This really helps me to understand the concepts we are learning because I can see through the examples how to do things. I also like how we are to develop our own formulas or problems. Although it is a challenge, it really gets me thinking. By doing examples in class and creating our own problems has allowed me to make progress and I hope we can continue to do these things in class because I feel like I have really benefited from it. I also feel like the past couple weeks I have started to catch on a little bit more and I hope to continue on this path.

Summary and Synthesis

Since my last blog, CGI is started to make more sense. In the beginning, activities we would do in class using the CGI approach would be very frustrating and I would have to struggle through them. Now that I am starting to understand the approach I can see how the activities are suppose to benefit the student and to see what they would see when completing the assignment. Since we already know the information that we are seeking to find in the activities, it can make it more frustrating. When students are approaching the activities with less prior knowledge though, you can see how the activities are building on their knowledge and helping them create the new concepts. While I still would not use CGI for all activities in the classroom, I understand more now that while it may be frustrating at first for the students, it is beneficial as well.

Personal Concerns and Questions

As the semester greatly speeds by, I cannot help but to notice the strength of enlightenment of this course. Growing up, mathematics was never my an academic advantage of mine. I found that efforts were greatly asserted to make the standard expectation. As I find myself taking Math Methods, it makes me feel very reassured that I can pursue a career and grow as an educator. If it was up to me, I would suggest that Math Methods was a course that was advised to be taken before the Math Concepts for Teachers courses. The reasoning is that those preliminary courses have a heavy emphasis on direct application much like every math class I have ever taken. Math Methods instills multiple strategies and perspectives that embraces the subject matter comprehension as opposed to presenting information and having students regurgitate the material. Other math classes can instill great anxiety merely because of the sensation of being left behind in understanding while the class moves on to the next topic. I believe that I would have succeeded immensely in college mathematics if I had taken this course before Math Concepts. I would like to see a shift in the school's advising so future students would not face the anxiety they felt in high school. Keep up the excellent work Professor Reins.

New Insights and their Implications

We have just been talking about factions and talking about how to bridge the gap between modeling manipulatives and use of regular assessments through instruction. I have clearly been able to understand when using correct manipulatives can help students “bridge the gap” of understanding a concept and applying the concept to homework assignments. Students that are able to see how and why we do this certain math problem like having a common denominator, have a clear understanding of the concept and will be able to retain the knowledge more. The use of manipulatives should be used religiously in a classroom for children to see a concept and correlate why we do this math concept this way. I also see where math manipulatives can be a hindrance in the classroom, like just having a manipulative for a time waster and not really relaying important concepts to the students building foundations for math concepts. I also really like the use of the pattern blocks as fraction pieces. I think students could really retain the knowledge a lot better when they can see and touch the fraction of the whole of an object.

Questions and Answers

Throughout this class i have definately realized the importance of teaching your students using the "new" method of teaching, but it does not seem that easy from a teachers perspective. So my question would be...How do we as teachers not allow ourselves to fall back into the "old" methods of teaching?
Some of the answers that i can come up with are...
- Think of the positive influence that you are having on your students. I can say that i have had horrible math teachers in my past and i think this is truly why i dislike this subject so much. So if you, as a teacher, think of the positives for your students it should help you not fall back to the old way of teaching.
- Do your preperation in advance so you are not rusing to finish your lesson before class. If you do not have your materials and instruction already planned it is more likely that you are going to fall back to the old method of teaching math.
-Learn to think outside of the box. You as a teacher, need to be improving your teaching everday and if you allow yourself to use the new method of teaching you will be learning something new along with the students everday.
- Always keep in mind that you are not the only one learning this new method of teaching. Those of us that are going to be joining the workforce probably have a few more experiences that are fresh in our minds because we have just graduated and we have just learned this new material. You can always use other teachers as a reference, if you feel that someone else is more knowledgable about this topic, dont be afraid to collaborate and learn from one another.

Overall I think I have learned a lot of information in the first part of this class, I definately do not want to fall back into the old way of teaching math because I am a first hand example of how the old method of teaching math did not work. I have never liked math simply because of how I was taught math.

Personal Concerns and Next Steps - You may blog about genuine personal concerns created as a result of the experiences in this course. (Please note: If you blog on this item be sure to provide sound rationale for your concerns and what steps you are planning to pursue to address your concerns. This is not an opportunity to vent, be constructive and professional about it. Don't complain about something unless you offer a better alternative or solution.)

I guess the biggest concern that I have about this class is that I'm not used to learning math in this way. I am used to having Math teachers tell me how to do a problem and then turn me loose to practice they way they showed me how to do it. It is going to take me some time to reach into my own brain to try to figure out how to do different math problems. I think that by learning how to do this I will be a better Math teacher.

New Insights and their Implications

I think that this class has been very productive so far and the activities that we have done have been ery helpful. I agree with Brittany that math was taught to us in a very routine manner. I think what is most interesting is that in the past year, our classes and instructors have been telling us that there is going to be a new shift in education. I did not know what it was going to be like until this semester. I think that we, as future educators, are intimidated by the fact that what we have observed of teachers over the years growing up and going through the K-12 system, is not how we are suppose to teach. I also think that it is interesting that during class, everyone including me, is hesistant to answer questions and have an opinion. I think that this class is goign to be very interesting and a great learning experience for everyone.