Week 11: Report and Reflection

This week we finalized our learning activity presentations with computational strategies. Basically, how we could implement technology into the classroom while teaching math. Amberley showed a Youtube video on fractions. This was effective because videos can help to engage students by taking what would be a confusing topic, breaking it down, and adding humour and visuals to capture attention and help students to better understand the topic. Amberley brought up a great point, that too many videos may be too routine for students, and then they start to get boring and predictable. Videos are good to use once in a while to perk the class back up again when they start to lose interest. Jake also made a great point, that the resources are already there for us and we don't have to constantly be reinventing the wheel. These sources are here for a reason, and that is to help us help students.

Madison had us playing Ratio Stadium in pairs. I think that these types of games allow for practice of mental math but also evoke friendly competition in the classroom. This is a great way to keep students engaged and also work together to solve problems. Maybe students at different grade levels could be partnered together so that the lower grade level student can learn from the higher level student, and also not feel as though they are losing at the game because they have help with them.

You can play Ratio Stadium here 

I really liked how Victoria looked at ways in which technology can be used as a way to consolidate a unit and check for students readiness in preparation for tests. Using Kahoot allows teachers to see how each individual student is answering and can better evaluate their position in the unit that way. The teacher can also see what questions the class is mostly getting wrong, so they know whether to work on it more before a test or not. Kahoot kept everyone in the class so engaged and it allows for something new and interesting to happen in the class. We are trying to make math as fun and engaging as possible for students and break the stigma of boring old mathematics! I think if our schools have access to technology we should harness the opportunity to bring it in as much as possible.