Unit Plan Canvas

Creating the canvas was a little challenging for me as I have never used the “play” website before. However, creating the canvas is very self-explanatory after looking around the different widgets on the side bar. It is a great way to lay out a unit plan, because it identifies each section well. Students and other colleagues would be able to understand how the unit is going to be planned out by looking at each widget and noticing what is going to be taught and how it will be taught. 

The unit I chose for this assignment is 8^th grade statistics and probability. The lesson I had used in Interactivity #3 touched base on functions as well as statistics and probability. However, for this unit I decided to focus on statistics and probability. I find this topic interesting because students can relate it to their own lives. There are many examples that we, as math teachers, can bring into the classroom and use as a resource to explain this unit. Students are not only learning the different concepts of finding probability but can use it in their own lives outside of the classroom.

http://www.play.annenberginnovationlab.org/play2.0/challenge.php?idChallenge=2183&mode=view#network6

Different Forms of Technology Used in a Math Classroom

                When teachers hear that they have to use technology in their classroom they sometimes begin to worry if they are unfamiliar with technology, or simply not technology savvy. I, for one, would be classified as one of those people. However, using technology in a math classroom does not have to go into such great detail. There are a variety of computer software programs that can help students learn math and also help them present their information better with representations such as graphs and charts. Students nowadays are knowledgeable of the software that is available to them on the computers. It takes them less time to figure software out then it would take me, for example.

            There are geometry drawing programs available on computers that can be used to make and verify the relationship between the number of sides of a polygon and the sum of the interior angles. Students can also use the program to verify their own arguments or relationships of different geometric topics. Spreadsheets can also be used to generate patterns from formulas. Students can use them to verify or disprove their predications. Students can also use the spreadsheets to learn how to write formulas in different forms. Word processing and presentation programs, such as PowerPoint, can be helpful tools that students can use for presentations. They can use the word processing document to write reports and present their results from their mathematical investigations. Teachers can also have students imbed spreadsheets, graphs, and equations in their documents to further explain their findings. Students can use PowerPoint to make presentations to their peers in the class.

            Overall, using technology in a math classroom does not have to involve intricate tools, such as a smart board or other advanced tools. These computer software programs are tools that provide concrete ways for students to explore abstract concepts, enhance success for visual learners, promote higher-order thinking skills, and deepens understanding.

The Use of YouTube in Math Class

            Many people may think that YouTube is only used for entertainment purposes or for people to post funny videos on. However, that is not the case. In an article that I recently read, a teacher used YouTube videos in her classroom to enhance her lessons or to simply engage her students in the lesson of the day. For example, she used a video on YouTube to introduce a lesson on the Pythagorean Theorem, which helped her hook the students’ attention. She found that not all the videos she showed interested her students. In fact, the student found some videos to be boring. In turn, she took their complaints as an opportunity to challenge her students to create their own video. The assignment was for the students to make their own video illustrating the math they found boring from the YouTube video. She believed this would allow the students to show their creativity and use technology in an appropriate manner. As a result of this assignment she was able to assess her students’ understanding of the topics they chose and determine what areas they may have a weakness.

            I never thought about using this form of technology in my classroom. As a college student I have used YouTube videos to study for exams when I was unfamiliar with the math topic or needed a further explanation. However, I did not realize how many mathematical videos there are on YouTube that can reinforce a lesson for students or help teachers engage their students in the lesson. After reading this article I will definitely take this idea into consideration for my future classroom. I think that this is a great way to get students excited about math and have them express their creativity and reasoning behind their concept of the topic. This is also a good way to encourage group work and have students explore a different form of education. 

"Technology & Pedagogy"

I chose this particular lesson plan because I wanted to learn how to incorporate real life situations into lessons that I will be teaching, which is sometimes difficult to do in mathematics.

The curriculum goals, teaching strategies, and technologies used in this lesson, for the most part, are in complete alignment. The Activity Packet provided outlines the curriculum goals perfectly. Each step provides specific directions that students need to do in order to move on to the next step. The only thing I would say that is not in alignment is the teaching strategies used. For the most part, all of them are efficient in explaining the lesson and providing a demonstration to show an example of part of the experiment. To create the scatterplot all the students have to do is enter the data and then the excel program can create a graph. In order for teachers to determine if the students understand the concept of graphing a scatterplot, it might have been a good idea to give another set of data (already completed) and have them create a scatterplot themselves on graph paper.

The excel spreadsheet is essential to achieving the curriculum goals, because the software can create a scatterplot based on the data that the students input. I would have liked to read that students present their group work via the smart board or a document camera. Allowing group presentations would incorporate the use of the smart board and/or document camera which would have given students the opportunity to express their reasoning behind their thought process during the experiment.  

URL: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Agvr5L6t2qQGdGJGYzUwQk52R2Vad2lxS09JNlptN1E&usp=sharing

Smartboards in Mathematics

            What really is a smart board? Why did they give it such a name? What is meant by the term “smart”? These are questions that cross my mind when someone mentions a smart board. During elementary and middle school all we had in math class was a chalkboard that later on was replaced by a white board. It was not until high school that smart boards were coming into the classroom and teachers were beginning to use it. At first, I thought it was a replacement for a projector. However, once the teacher began using it daily I understood what purpose it served. For one, I think that smart boards save valuable lesson time, especially in math class, because teachers do not have to write notes on the board, necessarily, and can use that time using the smart board. It is an alternative way to giving notes, for example, because we can just have the notes already up on the projector for students when they walk into class. It also serves as an interactive way of learning for the students. As teachers, I think that we have to give students more of an opportunity to explain their reasoning and understanding rather than giving them all of the information. One way for this to happen is to have students come up and use the smart board to show their peers their method of doing a particular problem.

            However, are smart boards really that effective? Are students engaging more today with the smart boards then they did ten years ago with the chalkboard or white board? As Michael Staton says in an article titled “Why Smartboards are a Dumb Initiative”, “They [smartboards] are just the least cost-effective way to improve learning” (http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-smartboards-are-dumb-initiative.html). He also points out that teachers believe it is the only way to save time from writing notes on the board. However, you can do this in numerous ways that do not include a smart board. He mentions they can use a projector, screen shot something, or use Microsoft OneNote. He does not mention any information on whether students were engaged more with the smart boards or with regular chalkboard/white board. However, after reading his argument he raises some good points that I wish to explore and gather more information about. 

Techniques to Teaching Math Using Technology

            As I was deciding on what my topic would be for this blog-post I was researching different techniques of teaching math to students using technology. I came across an article that had different ways of teaching math lessons using different forms of technology. The first tip it gave was to send weekly extensions of the math curriculum via text messages to students. When I initially read this sentence it alarmed me, because it meant that I would have all my students’ cell phone numbers and they would have mine as well. I did not know how comfortable I would feel doing that, since nowadays you hear so much about inappropriate student-teacher relationships. However, when I continued reading it gave an alternative to the text messages, which was to do it through emails. I do not see this as being a big issue, since emails are so common and it does not involve having everyone’s cell phone numbers.

            The article then began to mention how to teach certain lessons using technology. The first lesson was teaching angles. A fun way to teach this would be to set up a scavenger hunt for the students and give them disposable cameras to take pictures of their answers. I thought this was a fun idea, because it is a different approach to the standard form of teaching and it gets the students engaged in a fun activity. It then mentioned teaching multiplication tables using an interactive whiteboard. It stated that students would have the opportunity to come up and group different shapes to show a multiplication problem. Again, this seems like a good idea because it takes away from having the teacher do all the teaching, and gives students the opportunity to explore new concepts and help their fellow peers. This also gets younger kids interested in math, and it can make it more fun for them because they are able to interact with their math problems. The students will see the concept not as a new math technique, but rather a game.