Let's congress

This past week in Math was different then past weeks. It felt more of a continuation from previous weeks with fractions and decimals and adding on with ratios. This week I also had my mini lesson presentation that I think went well. But first with the lesson, we started it off again with another captivating open activity. This specific activity had me challenged, I found it hard to start and once I started writing down the information fro the equation I couldn’t think of a way to solve the problem. I found it difficult to solve this particular problem because I could not visualize the problem. At first I wanted to start by drawing the figures out and trying to imagine them but then I just tried to do the same by looking at the image on the screen. One we wrote it out as a ratio it started to make sense to me but then when we did it as solving for the variable it was hard for me to grasp that concept of solving for this particular equation. This equation came with the opportunity to use different methods to solve and definitely could have the potential to build on from the original problem.

A big part of this week’s lesson was the concept and idea of a math congress. We built from last week’s math problem with figure out Joel’s kitten problem. We expanded our small 4 people group into bigger congresses. A congress can really bring out the importance of group work and working in a team setting, getting students to share ideas and problem solving solutions with each other, help build connections to solutions and even connections to real world and bring forth a deeper understanding. Starting off by learning about congresses and being apart of one helps to understand the importance and deeper meaning. It allows for us educators to be in the shoes of our younger learners. It brings forth to strong mathematical process that are in the curriculum and that is reasoning & providing and communication. These two processes can sometimes be overseen in math; as a student I never really provided reasoning behind how and why I solved my math problems I just did what I had to, to find the answer. But when we allow our students to share their understanding and thought process it will make it easier for them to be able to do it again with a different problem. We allow for our memories to bring forth important concepts because we understand them better. Communication is the same and it falls and in hand with reasoning and providing. With a math congress students can have ownership of their work and ideas and have a choice, which in mathematics is important for students to have the ability to choose how to solve a problem the way they understand it best.

Like I mentioned earlier I also had my presentation this past week. I think overall it went well I think my idea made sense to what I was teaching and I hope it targeted what I wanted it to, which was to help my peers understand that adding integers is as easy as walking forwards and backwards. Adding movement and physical activity is something I think about frequently when creating lesson plans and concepts. I understand sometimes concepts and ideas won’t always be captured with that strategy but with math it makes it easier then other subjects and I for one will work in crossing curriculum’s and subjects over to help explain the relationship with one another. I think all three of the lesson plans on integers were well done by both Adam and Kelley, they taught integers different then me and I enjoy seeing that. I think as educators it is important to work with one another and share ideas and strategies that work in your classroom. I think as teachers we can make a strong team and working with each other is a piece, but allowing each other to become a part of their classroom and share ideas and perceptions is something I look forward too.