New Insights and their implications

I feel as though I have already learned new teaching methods in this class. I have learned from the teacher, my peers, the textbook, and our online resources that we have been using. A lot of these concepts and methods that we have been learning are new to me. Alot has changed since I first began learning math. It seems like when I learned math I was taught one way to do it and then we just practiced that method using a multiple of different numbers. We never had to explain why we did what we did or how we got our answer. It was simply just two plus two equal four. The only manipulatives we used were little counting blocks. We didn't have manipulatives for triangles, fractions, etc. Through the new methods that I have been learning in this class, I have learned how to reflect on the math problems and how to explain why were are doing the steps we are doing. I am learning how to explain myself in the mathematical problems that I conduct as well as figuring out alternative ways to do problems. One problem can be expanded up on so much and that can definitely help students understand math much better. By reflecting on problems and explaining problems, students, as well as myself, can better understand the problem and be able to apply that method to other stituations and/or concepts. With a stronger understanding, students will gain much more confidence in their learning. They will want to reflect on their problems and they will become excited when they figure out new problems. I already experienced that within this class. When we were using different shapes to make a hectagon for example, it was exciting to achieve the correct scale factor. I want to implicate a lot of excitement and hands-on learning in my classroom. I want my students to be confident and motivated to learn! I am excited to gain even more ideas from this class and learn more methods that I can implicate into my own classroom someday.