Final Comments

Thanks for a great semester Susan. I had a lot of fun in MAED 314A. The party was a lot of fun and Thank you very much for the gifts - I love my math gloves. Have a wonderful holiday.

Final Reflection

The Way My Thinking has Developed over the Term

After reading all the entries in my blog I did not see a very big change in my style of writing or in my thinking. From the beginning of the term to the end, my writing and thinking has been fairly consistent. I included my honest opinion in everything that I have had to write all semester. However, after reading over my entire blog, I realized that I have learned a lot in MAED 314A. From our first blog assignment I learned that there exist two kinds of understanding: relational and instrumental. Following the reading of the article and the class discussions we have had regarding this article, I realized that incorporating relational understanding in the classroom is very important. I think that students can only develop a true understanding of the mathematical concept they are being taught if they have a relational understanding of the concept. Nevertheless, after doing the microteaching in assignment #2, I realized that it is very difficult to always teach everything using relational understanding. A balance has to exist between relational and instrumental understanding.

After reading through the peer and self assessments for both microteaching assignments we had, I realized that I did a fairly good job. Generally, I got fairly good feedback from my peers. However, from my self-assessments I realized that there are some things I need to work on. I think that I have to continue working on talking a little slower.

Additionally, after reading my writings for the numerous articles we read for class, I learned that it is important to incorporate a wide range of activities into the classroom. Constantly lecturing and giving students questions from the textbook is not a good way to engage students in math class. Many students find math boring; therefore, it is the teacher’s responsibility to get these students interested in math by introducing them to fun, engaging math activities. One such activity that I thought was very interesting and can make math more creative is writing math poems. The math poem I posted to the blog is the first poem on math I ever wrote in my entire life. Although, I do not think it is a great poem, I had a lot of fun writing it. I think that I am going to do an activity like this in my math class during my long practicum.

Although I do not think my writing and thinking changed from the beginning of the semester to the end, I really enjoyed going back and reading what I wrote on my blog. Rereading everything made me remember all the interesting things we learned during this class. One thing that has changed for me from the beginning of the semester to now is that I am more aware of how to make math fun for students. Therefore, I guess my thinking did change a bit from the beginning of the semester to the end: I became more aware of the importance of making math fun and how to go about doing this. I will try many of the activities we talked about in class or read about in the articles during my teaching career.