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.

New Insights and Their Implications

During the first couple weeks of class it has been very interesting. I am finding that I really enjoy this class and the approach that is being taken to teaching it. Instead of having us write 20 lesson plans to cover math concepts in what we think is a deep concept, we really have taken a step back and uncovered a completely new layer here. I can safely bet that most of my peers in this class, including myself, were taught math from projector transparencies, examples, and worksheets galore. This class is making me rethink about all of the other lesson plans I have written. Did I really achieve my objectives, or do I just think I did? I like the activities and discussions we have had thus far. The article that we read the other day about math anxiety being learned from the same sexes was astounding to me, and the fact that nearly 90% of elementary teachers are female. But, it really does start to make sense because how can we teach what we don't know? How are the kids supposed to know what we as teachers, don't even know? So, I really have enjoyed this class and I really am looking forward to the rest of the semester. I think this will enhance all of our teaching philosophies greatly!

New Insights and their implications

From the first few weeks of class I have learned a new approach to teaching mathematics or how to teach mathematics though problem solving. I currently feel that I could teach problem solving in a variety of ways, when previously my knowledge on this concept was not very good. Because I now have a strong understanding of problem solving I feel it is very important to implement in the classroom. Our in class readings and class discussions have helped me to gain knowledge and skills on problem solving as a method of teaching. I also learned that problem solving is a “way of teaching” and that when done correctly students really learn the material in depth. We also learned that there are several factor that influence problem solving and that there is no one-way to teach it. From the in class quizzes, I have learned that in order to meet the student where they are at in their mathematical knowledge, is important for teachers, when selecting activities for problem solving task, to choose activities that have multiple "entry points” allow student to solve their own problems.

New Insights and their Implications

I have already learned a lot through just a couple of times we have had class. I guess what I first thought of math was what I was taught in grade school up to some of my college courses, which was to me was a regurgitation of the text back to the teacher with either a quiz or a test. But I think about the implications of just regular teaching to students and I can see the draw backs. I think with the help of the Timms testing we have learned that we are lacking in focus, reasoning, coherence, and sense making. I have found why students need to know this to be successful in math for a life time. I have also learned a lot about problem solving in a classroom and I think I will have one to two models of problem solving hanging up in my classroom. I think students need to know the required steps of solving a problem and also that there isn’t clearly one way of solving a problem. I think overall I have a better concept of thinking about math more constructively and I also believe that at times the STATE standards suck.

Blog #1

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.)

So far in this course, I am concerned with my own personal skills in math and whether that will translate well into a grade or my ability to teach mathematics to my future students. I personally have no faith in my abilities in math and at some points; I am scared to even try for fear of failure. I have had an anxiety toward math since I was little. I will also admit that I was fearful of even beginning this class considering my past relationship with mathematics. To address my concerns, I am going to do my best in this class and try to take in as much information and ideas as I can in order to allow my future students to have a better chance of success and more positive feelings toward mathematics. I resolve to take the assignments, readings, and activities one step at a time and ask for help if I it’s needed. I feel if I take an optimistic attitude toward the class I might find a chance for myself to become competent in math methods and even being to enjoy it to some extent.

Blog January 31st

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?

It becomes increasingly evident as we delve further into the semester, that teaching mathematics has to be understood and explained with a broad interpretation. As I speak with my peers, we all have a similar inclination to teach but we all learn material by a variety of methods. I understood that potential students need to have an educator who does not divulge every technique but trains a student to actively seek for a path to a solution. Professor Reins made a very valid point the previous class session. He made the remark that state standards should play a role in how one should teach but is not the absolute reference guide. Standards should be carried out with an emphasis on broadening a mathematical concept. The reasoning is that students need to know the background knowledge of the material and not just a limited amount of highlights that lack transition into other topics. I find that this class will greatly enhance the manner in which I educate. In addition, I feel that this course should have been presented to education majors before or during the math concept classes. The perspective not only teaches one how to explain mathematics, but it also gives a student more a comfortable approach to executing unfamiliar math.

Blog #1

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?

So far in this class I have learned many new perspectives on both approaching math concepts as well as teaching them. Throughout my schooling I have never really liked math. I think the majority of the blame for my dislike of the subject was my lack of confidence. I never thought I was good at math, therefore I never wanted to work on it. I realize that many students encounter the same problems. In this class I am learning to take a new approach when teaching math, which is to allow students to explore the problem before teaching them a specific way to complete it. In school I have always been taught a certain way and expected to follow the way I was shown. I do not believe this is the most effective way to teach math, however it may be difficult to learn a new way. I think my view of math in the past will help me to be a better teacher because I understand the frustration it may cause to a student. I understand that there are many different ways to teach and learn math, and I look forward to learning more new approaches!

Insights and Concerns

Adapting to change is an important skill to acquire. I love the fact that everything we are leaning in these methods classes compliments each other towards shaping our very own teaching philosophy! We have been talking a lot about the importance of shifting the balance of classroom power from the teachers to the students; the teachers' serve as guides in the students' learning not just individuals that bark the steps of mathematical computations and demand the students to repeat. We've been talking about how the South Dakota standards are vague; they're too broad being a mile wide and an inch deep of content. If you try to focus on teaching everything then nothing is really important.
Now how is this going to affect my teaching abilities? I believe if my school district adopts an outdated textbook curricilum for math, I will be faced with the biggest challenge of all time. We have been introduced to the NCTM's National Standards which emphasizes the importance of incorporating national standards with state standards in order to develop a decent lesson to teach. I was never really good with mathematics as I have been to the math trailer countless times throughout grade school. I believe that in order to be successful in this class and future classrooms, I am going to have to be vigilant and persistent in applying higher level thinking and reasoning skills in my lessons!

Blog 1

New Insights and their Implications

Just in the short time that I have been in this class, I already have a new perspective in math. I am beginning to understand that there are many more ways than I was aware of to teaching math and I realize that I need to learn these methods in order to be an excellent math teacher. I typically get very frustrated with math but I think that by learning these methods I will be able to be confident with what I am doing and hopefully portray that in my future classroom. I look forward to the variety of things that I will be learning and strengthening my math skills.

Blog 1: New Insights and Their Implications

To begin thinking about math in a new and more efficient manner, especially the ways in which it is taught, is challenging to say the least. I believe that the last few class periods of this semester have really begun to push me to try and become more positive towards the field of mathematics. Also, I have attempted to open myself up to considering different ways of teaching the content which can be especially difficult because of the more traditional ways in which I was taught as an elementary student. The instructor and the ideas/activities he has presented the class have stretched us to consider problem solving and other staple concepts of math to a much greater depth than what is currently being taught many students of the United States even today. As the country lags behind in math scores on the international spectrum, teachers and federal officials alike are concerned about the lack of progress America has been making in the classroom. It will be our job as future educators to make a difference, which, as stated before, will be a challenge in and of itself because of our lack of background knowledge in the ways in which we are expected to teach math.

New Insights and Their Implications

So far from this class we are learning about a new approach to teaching mathematics, where the teacher is not providing the students with all the concepts and formulas. Instead, the students are participating in activities where they solve problems and discover the concepts and formulas themselves. This is a hard adjustment to make in prior thinking of what mathematics education is like, and can be frustrating for the students. However, when the light bulb goes off and things start to click for the student's, that's when the method proves itself. I think that when I am teaching in my own classroom I would like for my students to solve their own problems and be the facilitators to their own learning. I am worried though that it may be difficult to encourage students to keep trying and for them to not get discouraged.

New Insights and Their Implications/ Personal Concerns and Next Steps

New Insights and Their Implications:

I have learned more about the reformed-based teaching that we are learning to teach our future children. I have learned that by simply modeling a problem or helping a child work through their own problems by showing the steps is not a good idea to teach children to understand math concepts. There are two ways for teachers to use standards; the first way is to find a standard and match it with an activity and the second is to find an activity and match it with the appropriate standards. Throughout this class I have learned a lot about using resources, especially finding multiple standards to back up the activity being used. I have really enjoyed reading and learning about the NCTM's goals and expectations and the activities it provides for teachers to use. This affects me as a future teacher because I will now use more resources to find and use in my activities. I will also work on learning the new way of teaching so that I will not be giving my students answers in a way that does not help them learn or understand the material. I want my students to be challenged and intrigued in figuring out math! I am excited to continue learning how to teach this in my classroom in this math methods course!

Blog #1 Summary & Synthesis

Summary & Synthesis Blog:
On Tuesday, we were to find a math standard that was full of difficult language and terms and come to class on Thursday with that standard on paper. So I found a standard that I thought was going to be interesting to pick apart, but on Thursday I was a bit frustrated with the standards because we were not able to match a NCTM standard with the first state standard that we had chosen. It was nice to be working as a group on this project because once we put our heads together we found a match to the standard that we had chosen. I think this is one way to show that if you keep trying at any task you will be able to come up with an answer. You should never give up on a particular task, and this is a great example because when we took the time to pick apart each individual standard we found a match. I now understand the importance of not only following State standards, but also National standard while teaching math education. I am interested to see where we are going with this project and learn more about the standards and the connections between State and National standards.

Blog #1---ELED 330

Personal Concerns & Next Steps---You may blog about personal concerns created as a result of this experiences in this course. (Please be sure to provide rationale).

When I started this course, I had some personal concerns going into this class. Math has been an enemy of mine since early on in my school experience. A bad experience with a teacher in math in second grade solidified my hatred for all things math-related and ever since then, math classes have been my worst fear. So, the thought of taking a math class where I would learn to teach math to other students seemed incredibly daunting at first. I admit, I could have been more optimistic on my first day fo class, but I found myself dreading this class before I even arrived. While I can't say that I'm feeling completely 100% competent in teaching math yet, I am feeling very much relieved after the first few classes and do feel like I can set aside all of my bad feelings towards math and focus on providing my future students with a positive math experience. Once I allow myself to realize that I can be successful in math, I can help my students realize that they can be successful as well, and ultimately, as an educator that is my goal. So, what started out as a real serious personal concern and doubt at the beginning of class has slowly started to become a resolution to be personally successful in this class not only for myself but for the future students I will teach these subjects to as well someday!

First Blog--Eled 330

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?

I learned many new things since class has started. I have learned that I will need to teach many different ways to solve the same problem, and that different students will use different entry points. I l earned how important it is to not just give solutions to problems but to encourage the students to find a solution. It is very important to allow the students to struggle for a little bit before helping them. I also learned that I am very nervous to teach math to my students.

Blog Four: Questions and Answers

My question is: How do we as new teachers keep ourselves from falling back on the "old way" of teaching math?
I think there are many ways to confront this problem. Some of these could be:
-Never be afraid to try something new
-Learn from the students
-Collaborate with other teachers
-Learn from other teachers
-Never be afraid to ask for help

Blog Three: Summary and Synthesis

I think the Cognitively Guided Instruction that we have just learned has been the most beneficial part of this class. I wish we would have spent more time in class on it. I think this class has helped me understand how children think about math and also that there are many ways that children think about math. This math class has also helped me understand some math things that I previously did not understand completely. Now it is up to me to put my knowledge from this class into motion in the future.