Math Education

Hello fellow bloggers and educators,

As my first week at Brock University draws to a close, more technology has seeped its way into the Teacher Education program. It is no surprise that technology is a prime area of focus during this day and age where advancements are so frequent and prevalent. It's almost hard to keep up! However, we must try to align teaching strategies with recent developments, because when one aspect of teaching evolves, the others follow suit. And so do the learning expectations of students.

Originally, I had never considered technology becoming a huge component in math education. When I think of my own experiences in math classes, I envision the traditional textbook-paper approach, with the odd manipulative of a visual demonstration (i.e. blocks, lego, graphs, etc). Today proved otherwise. Our math class was shown a very thought-provoking TED Talk which highlighted quite a contradicting methodology: to abandon the textbook approach and lead a more "hands-on" process of teaching mathematical material. The speaker also proposed to be less helpful and let the students build the problems themselves. I found this the most interesting. Taking away all necessary information to solve a problem (i.e. the measurements of a three dimensional shape in a geometry problem), adds a new element to the challenge. This may work in favour for students who already enjoy the subject, or it may instill fear having "too much freedom" to solve the question for other students. Some may not even know where to begin, while others may show excitement being provided with this sense of autonomy. 

I did agree, however, with the proposal of integrating real-life examples, often understated in the subject of math. How many times does a teacher hear "When will I ever need to use this equation in real life?". Well, the TED Talk video really took the whole "real-life example" to the next level. To physically move a math class outdoors adds a completely different dimension, and reinforces the idea that yes, math is found in situations we may not initially consider, so yes, math is in fact important in the real world. At times it may take visual proof and practical demonstrations to accept this notion. In this sense, I do aspire to make math more fun and engaging while including various multi-media.

In case any of you would like to watch the insightful TED Talk by Dan Meyer, here it is:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover?language=en

I hope you all can take away something from it just as I did.

Until next time,

Have a beau-tea-ful day!

Miss Capano