Personal Concerns and Next Steps

This course is helping me to deepen my understanding of math concepts, as opposed to other math classes. Other math classes are more traditional and only teach factual math and only show you how to find solutions to specific problems. I like how this course is forcing me to use hands-on problem solving.  I like how the mathematics is being shown in generalization and being shown using real world examples.  It was difficult at first, because this learning style is not what I was used to.  I think it will be beneficial for me to be able to solve problems myself, so that I can more effectively teach others how to solve math problems.  I like how we are able to discuss and build on each others' ideas during class discussion, because we can come up with different solutions for math teaching techniques.  My largest struggle with this class has been adapting to the new learning style, but I think in the long run it will be beneficial to me. 

Personal Concerns and Next Steps

Math for me has been an up and down process. I struggled a ton while in elementary but I had a good instructor in middle school and began to catch up and really understand it. I then excelled in math through high school. Now that I'm coming back to it I feel as if the "use it or loose it" statement is really true. This is class was overwelling the first few class periods but now that we have gotten into it and really started to examine how important math is to students and how teaching it is crucial to their learning I have new perspective on it. I know that one day I will be teaching these students so I need to value what Dr. Reins says and put it to use and remember this is what will be best for my students when I get into the classroom.

How it's going

I have always been up and down with math. In school I understood math well until Jr. high and in high school I got it half of the time. College was pretty easy but it's only when I had a great teacher that I truly understood it. Right now I'm having a hard time understanding because this is a new way of thinking. It's hard to change your ways and learning habits and we as teachers are expected to do this to our students. I think that by going through this class will help me understand my students and help them figure out different ways to get an answer. I am excited for the moment that I truly get it I just hope it comes soon.

Personal Concerns and Next Steps

I've talked to other students that have taken this course and some described it as frustrating. I've always enjoyed Math and been able to understand it fairly well so this didn't concern me. Being farther into the course, now I know what they meant. I felt a little lost in the beginning, but now I am starting to feel better. I know it is because we are having to think about the math like I never had to do in any math class before. I can tell that this way of teaching is much more beneficial for students and plan to teach more like this and less like I was taught. I do feel better about this course now, but I know that I may struggle with it throughout the semester. I get frustrated when it doesn't click for me right away. I know that I have to keep putting in the extra effort and maybe start spending more time on assignments and even visit some office hours to fully understand what we are covering.

Personal Concerns and Next Stages

I have always struggled with Math. The first few classes that we had were extremely overwhelming and stressful. I completely agree with certain concepts that Dr. Reins has spoken about. One major thing that I took to heart is taking time on each topic and not rushing it. For some people, including myself, I need more time for professors to go over the material and I need time to process it. In this class I hope that I get the information that I need and have plenty of time is taken on each topic.  As the semester has gone on, I am starting to understand the concepts-which is promising and is starting to build my confidence in this difficult subject. If and when challenges arise I will try different solutions to answer questions (looking outside of the box), I will collaborate with my peers, and also go to Dr. Reins.

Personal Concerns and Next Steps

I'm not sure when or why I lost interest in math, but when I left elementary school I feel that math became more challenging every year. When I was younger, every day after school I would sit at home and practice my math flash cards, not as punishment but for enjoyment. I loved the board races, "Around the World," and other forms of competition that our teacher would let us do to help us to remember math facts both quickly and correctly while having fun at the same time. I've always been someone who likes a little competition, and when I knew I would have to participate and race against my classmates, I would practice that much harder to make sure that I was the best in the class. When I started middle school, I feel like the fun was taken away from learning. Not many teachers would incorporate excitement into their daily lessons. Direct teaching was most certainly the top method of instruction, with the teacher writing the notes on the overhead as we copied them down before completing an assignment with twenty of the same types of problems over and over again.

When I lost interest in math, I would not try to fully understand the material, but simply memorize the steps so I could do well on the exams. I've always done fine in math, but it hasn't come easily. So far this semester I have realized how much deeper my understanding would be if I had been taught by the method of instruction we are learning in class now. To help me find my strengths again and to be successful in this class, I will need to participate in class by asking questions, push myself with every topic by reviewing the material daily, and really look at the big picture instead of just memorizing how to do the problems.

Questions and Answers

One of the things I've been thinking about during this semester is the effectiveness of this type of mathematical instruction. I really do believe that this method is effective and could really make a difference in many students' learning. However, I wonder the effect it will have if the students only work with math this way for one year. At best, everyone in our class will leave this semester after having mastered this method. Since we won't all be teaching together in the same elementary school, though, will this kind of instruction be advantageous when surrounded by years of direct instruction?

I realize that the teacher after me would then need to spend less time on the topics I covered the previous year, but I'm still concerned that the curriculum plans wouldn't match up between years of problem-solving instruction and direct instruction. My personal solution would be to teach middle school mathematics so that I could continue with the students for two to three years rather than just one. That seems like an easy way out, but the alternatives are risking a disconnected curriculum, submitting to direct instruction, or trying to persuade other teachers to use this method.

Math has never been an easy subject for me.  I have struggled with it all of my life and coming into this class I started to feel more defeated.  Hopefully throughout this semester I will be able to understand the concept of how to teach math a new way. So far I have struggled a little but it is becoming easier to understand.

Personal Concerns and Next Steps

So far I have found this class very challenging. I have never been in a class that has been taught in this way. I have always done fairly well in math growing up but this class makes me feel like I know nothing. Hopefully, I begin to understand the teaching methods used in this course. It is a great challenge and really gives me a new way to look at both learning and teaching math in a classroom. I think I will grow a lot from the experiences in this course.

Personal Concerns and Next Steps

Math has always given me trouble throughout my school years. It started when we first learned how to subtract numbers with two digits in elementary school, and got worse from there on out. I am afraid that this class is going to give me trouble because of my history with math, and I'm afraid that I won't be able to teach it well to my students. There are some math topics that sometimes click right away and I understand them, but others take a long time for me to grasp. If I keep having trouble with understanding concepts, my next step will be to ask Dr. Reins and/or my peers in the class for help with the problems.

Personal concerns and next steps

I find this course very interesting, but I do think it will become more of a challenge for me. Math has never been my strong point. I think it is because I had very bad teachers all throughout junior high and highschool. My personal concerns are that I will fall behind and not understand the information before the test. I hope that if I get help from Dr. Reins, from my peers, and pay attention in class then I will be able to be successful in this class. My next steps are to keep up with the homework and get as much help as I need to keep up with everyone else.

Questions and Answers

When comparing the United States to other countries in Math. I was wondering if the tests have the exact same questions. Are they questions asked in a way where the students need to think and discover the answer (as the way we are being taught in class) or are they well defined so the students know exactly what they teacher/test is asking of them? I think it would be fair to compare our progress with other countries if the questions were the same, but I'm more curious about wether or not it's how we were taught math or how we were taught to thought process.

As a kid, I remember having problem solving questions that I could go one way or another if this…or if that… but I never knew what the teacher would be grading me on, so I would spend my time trying to guess what the teacher wanted. Then time would be running down because I had spent all my time trying to think of different senerios. Finally, I would just have to guess on following questions because I ran out of time. Which leads to another question: If the tests are going to be timed and determine someones math ability, shouldn't the questions be well-defined? I personally like problem solving questions and could sometimes spend forever trying to figure out different possible answers, so I think it would be nice if tests questions were either ill-defined and have no time limit or well-defined if there is a time limit.

My Thoughts on Math

I have always loved math.  It has been my favorite subject since middle school, where I had a great math teacher who actually challenged us in math.  She taught us how to think on our own and come up with our own way of coming to a solution.  My freshman and sophomore year in high school our teachers were very procedural based which did frustrate me because I like things to make sense why I am doing it rather than just do what they are telling me to do.  Then my junior and senior year I had another great teacher who also challenged us to think on our own and it that it is okay to go outside of the box.  My only problem with math is I know how to do it in my head, but when I try to explain it to others I don't think it makes sense to them.  This class, however, is teaching easier ways to put what I am thinking into words for others to understand.  It was crazy that I have actually seen that this class has allowed me to express myself in math after only being in it for a short time.  The students in the youth group I help out with know that I love math, so they often ask for help; last week I was helping a girl with some advanced math and she was so confused.  Before I would just give them the answer because I didn't know how to explain it to them, but this time we actually had a discussion about it and it was like a light bulb went off in her head.  So it was encouraging to see, and I am looking forward to see how much more this class with help me stretch and grow in teaching.
April Buse

A new way of teaching math

Math has never been my strong point, however, this class has shown me a new outlook on teaching math. I have found that I have to focus and pay close attention at every single class period, however, I feel that I am feeling more comfortable about teaching math than I was at the beginning of the semester. I like the idea of teaching towards the common core standards; I feel that this will be very helpful for the students as well as us (the teachers!)
Miranda Chapman

Class Reflection

This class has been nothing if not interesting for me. I do not have a day where I do not worry about going to class, nor a day where I leave feeling accomplished and confident about what I was presented. I have been pushed harder and challenged further in this class than any other class I have taken during my time here at USD and most surely have a better appreciation for the frustration I know my future students will be feeling when I am teaching them in the future. Also, I have never been introduced to the idea of the common core standards before this class, and found it extremely interesting as tool to take with me in my future as a teacher. However the most important thing that I will take from this class is all the various materials we were introduced to in regards to better teaching math with manipulatives. This was not a way that I was traditionally taught math, and therefore was an extremely new concept to me that I will most definitely be using with my students in the future.

New Insights

Watching all the LPUs in class has been very interesting for me to say the least. I was extremely nervous about my own groups LPU before watching the previous groups present, however, now I am feeling much more confident in my group and our ability to teach our chosen subject. I was extremely unsettled about this class in general and even more leery about the LPU's before I was able to watch the others perform theirs and in turn feel more comfortable about my teaching of math in general.

Class Summary

Over the course of this class I have learned new methods and ways of teaching math, but more importantly the process of how to come up with the answers. The LPU's have really given me insight to new ways to help teach students, such as the use of manipulatives. The information learned throughout this course will help me as I teach math in the future because I will be able to share with the students the reasons for solving problems the ways we do.

Summary of the Class

Now that the semester is winding down, I thought a summary of the class would be appropriate. We have covered a lot of ground thus far. I can say my mathematical foundation has definitely become more solid. I have been challenged in ways that did at times make me feel uncomfortable only because I had never been exposed to learning/teaching in such a manner. I now appreciate the course and the ways the content was presented to me. (I only wish all my methods courses reached this level of depth).

New Insights and Their Implications

Watching my peers present their LPUs in class has been really helpful for my mathematical understanding. Each lesson provides a variety of different methods to teach a single concept. By observing these lessons I am gaining new insight of a concept; in addition, I am now better able to teach the concept. I realize not all of my students are going to learn the same way. Therefore, by knowing how to teach one concept multiple ways, I am preparing myself to better teach my students. I look forward to the rest of the lessons to come!

Summary and Synthesis

(I emailed this one too you in October and I am not posting it on the blog)

This course has also opened my eyes to a new light of math. After watching the first group present on Thursday, I can honestly say I am excited to see what the rest of the classes presentations are about. Although I felt uncomfortable in the beginning of the course, I am now becoming more confident in math than I have ever been. I can't believe it has taken 16 years of schooling before someone has opened my eyes to the processes behind math. My appreciation for math is definitely renewed.

Place Value

I thought the LPU for teaching place value was a fun and new way of learning place value. Though to be honest, I was very confused at what we were learning to teach our students in place value. I am confused on why we need to teach students the base 3 and base 5 values if we only really use base 10 to teach math problems. Maybe I am just confused on part of the lesson and don't remember being taught any of base 3 and base 5 in my elementary school days. However, I thought the using the manipulatives in the game was a fun way to understand addition and subtraction. It is a great visual and hands-on way to really show your students how to "steal" in subtraction and not "borrowing." I also think it is a better term to use "steal" instead of "borrow" so that students understand that the number column is not getting anything back. I also really liked getting to see using the unit blocks in one of the previous lessons for addition and subtraction. These are some learning manipulatives I would like to use in my future classroom to help explain math as it is very confusing for some students.

CGI LPU

I feel that presenting the LPU was a great learning experience. It is a great way to practice teaching new topics as well as to learn how to be a better teacher. I really liked engaging our "students" with including their names in our catchy poems. It was fun integrating language arts with the poems into our lesson. I believe this teaches students another fun way to play around with math problems. I wish we would have spent more time explaining the definitions of the different CGI problems to help everyone understand them better because I felt our lesson would be a better review lesson for CGI instead of the first time working with it. Also, this brings up the point that not everyone reads the homework readings to understand the just of the CGI lesson and as a teacher, you should be prepared for that.

Summary of the class

This class has been a whirlwind for me. It has been filled with determination, frustration, and success. It has challenged me to think outside the realm of what I have been taught and pushed me to be a better learner than I felt I have been in the past. In past classes, we have been taught materials based on the State Standards. I have never been told about the Common Core Standards until this class. The idea of the Common Core and the information I have learned about altering math instruction to fit those standards is something I will take with me into the classroom. If I had to pick, I would say that those standards are the most important aspects of this class that I will take with me. That doesn't mean there wasn't other aspects that will help me as well. The idea of working in groups is something that I have always preferred in a classroom, and this class has reinforced that idea. Using manipulatives is an idea that can help students understand in-depth concepts but I have also learned that it is important to create a "bridge" between the concrete work and the symbolic work (worksheets). Traditionally, I have been taught math based on worksheets and flashcards. This class has opened my eyes to the possibilities of better strategies and the need to step up the education that I want to give my students.

Summary of the Class

The major insights that I've gained from this class are: a glimpse at common core standards to promote understand for what is to come in the future, a deeper understanding of basic mathematical skills such as finding mean, exploring area, and rediscovering scale factors as well as gaining knowledge of algorithms and teaching through manipulatives.

Overall, I'm happy with my progress in mathematics as well as the grade I believe I've earned. To be honest I was worried about the test, being that it was very comprehensive and covered more material than I found manageable. I was happy to be able to use the internet as well as my notes. This was one of the more challenging classes I've taken this year, but I did learn a lot of new methods.

Summary of the class

I found this class very informational, but confusing and even frustrating at times. The material covered was interesting and was a great refresher of processes that I learned in elementary and junior high. The biggest issue I had with the class was only having one test. There were 120 pages of notes to go over and 32 questions on the exam. I didn't think that the knowledge I learned was well represented in the test. I am happy that you are trying to prepare us for the future, but it was really confusing.

Summary of the class

When I first came into this class I thought it would just be like every other methods class and I will not learn a thing. So I started the class by not really caring what was going on. The fact that this class challenged all of us I think took us all back a little bit too. We aren't use to being challenged and not understanding so much information like for this class. I have no realized how important this information really is when it comes time for me to teach. I wish I would have payed better attention in class so that I could be more familiar with these concepts and then be able to teach them to my students. I feel like these are important aspects to teach to students and very important ones too.

New Insights and their Implications

Looking back upon this course, I really feel that I have grown and progressed as an educator of mathematics. At the beginning of this course, I felt rather overwhelmed. I agreed with new reform based mathematical teaching, but felt like I would never be able to teach in this manner. I didn’t feel like my prior educational experiences had equipped me well enough to become a high-quality math teacher. Because I cannot change what has already been, so I decided to keep an open mind and a positive attitude about figuring “all this stuff” out. I have such a passion for helping students learn and be successful. As an educator, I want to provide my students with the best possible education that I am capable of providing. Students deserve nothing less than high quality, challenging educations, and it is my job as an educator to provide just that. I truly believe that as challenging and frustrating at times this course has been, I believe that I will become a better educator because of it. This course has really helped me see the importance of helping students develop problem solving and reasoning skills. I have learned how critical it is to develop cohesion for students so that they can continue to build, develop, and refine their knowledge about mathematics. When ideas are isolated and memorized, students can’t find purpose of meaning, but cohesion can help students continue to explore, build, and refine. Although I feel that I still need lots of practice with reform mathematics, I truly believe that from this course I have gained the tools to become an effective educator.

ELED 330 Test

We just recently took the ELED 330 portion test in this class. I can honestly say that I studied much harder for this tests than previous tests I have taken, but I could not become comfortable with the material. Even knowing that it was an open book/open notes/open internet test, I was still very nervous. Being that I am an individual that has severe test anxiety, I felt as though many of my "wrong" answers were silly mistakes that I knew exactly what I did wrong once I had the test back in front of me. Even though this test made me very frustrated with this class and my overall grade, I can appreciate why we as future teachers need to take this kind of test to understand the frustration that our future students will be feeling when they are being tested over the same material, and now I can better help my future students avoid feeling the way about the material that I am currently feeling.

Eled 330

Throughout this course, my thoughts about math have gone up and down. At the beginning of this course,  I didn't like the methods Dr. Reins used and I didn't feel as though I was learning anything. As the semester progressed, I was able to see a different side to those methods and I started to like the course more. This course all came down to one thing, "the test" To a lot of us, it was the hardest and most time consuming test that we have ever taken. I walked away from that test having no idea how I did but I hoped for the best. Am I satisfied with how I did, no completely. I hoped for an A but I'll settle for a B. This test challenged us in many ways that we have not been accustomed to. We are used to answering pretty basic questions that require no critical thinking or showing of the process we used to get to that answer. After taking the test, I realize the importance of this course. I realize that as future math teachers, we need to understand the processes that are required in order to effectively teach a certain concept in math. We must know how to explain this process and also be able to teach it so that if children are ever tested like we just were, they will be able to fully accomplish a task that we couldnt. I understand the methods of this course, and are they the most comfortable? no, but if this is what the math world is coming down to, we must accommodate and learn to like it. This course has definitely taught me many different strategies and methods to put forth in math and I can now feel accomplished for all the hard wor put towards this course.

ELED 330 Test

The recent test we took was at the higher level of thinking. I studied quite a bit for the test yet I did not feel 100% comfortable with the material. When the test was in front of me I seemed to struggle to come up with the answers. The part that was the worst for me was time. I felt very rushed even after staying fifteen minutes late before I turned in my test because I had to get to my other class. Even after turning the test in, I had no idea how well I did on it. This test did make me feel like a fifth grader who was getting overwhelmed while taking a hard test. As a teacher, we need to make sure the students are well prepared for exams by giving them study strategies as well as ways to use the resources that are available.