Kiara's Alge-blog

  Welcome back to the Alge-blog! This week, we looked at chapter 3 of the textbook, which highlights being stuck as a learning opportunity. This was an interesting and important idea because classroom culture also focuses heavily on being “correct”.  What Stood Out and What I Learned For our group discussion this week, I was the word watcher, meaning I picked out important words and defined them. This was my favourite definition from the textbook: STUCK: “An honourable and positive state, from which much can be learned.” I think this definition is the main point of this chapter and is really important to understand as a future educator. Many students get stuck on a problem and give up too soon. They conclude that “I'm just not good at math,” or get stressed about their grades. In our discussion, we talked about how it is important to shift this mindset in students and create a classroom environment where students feel safe to be wrong.  In Class: We tried the followin...

  Welcome back to the Alge-blog! This week, we looked at chapter 2 of the textbook and discussed the Entry, Attack, and Review phases. These are very important phases to understand because students often rush into a problem and give up quickly. Rushing a question can make students feel overwhelmed, confused, and stuck to a point where they can’t move forward.  What Stood Out and What I Learned In our group, we discussed how the Entry phase is often overlooked by students, and it is crucial that educators take the time to teach students how to approach a problem and emphasize the entry phase. During the entry, students should determine what they know about the problem by identifying key words, features, and information that is provided in the question. This is a process that needs to be taught by the teacher. Students should be encouraged to slow down the entry phase by taking the time to write down or highlight key information, draw a diagram or chart to visualize it, or use...

Happy New Year and welcome back to the Alge-blog! This is my first blog of the second semester, and I am excited to get into it! Unlike last semester, we are starting the first few weeks by participating in professional reading, where each group member is responsible for certain roles in analyzing and sharing information on textbook chapters. This week, I was the illuminator, which required me to draw an image or graphic organizer relating to chapter 1.  What stood out and what I learned During our group discussion, we talked about the importance of group work and exploration in a math classroom. This allows students the opportunity to have agency over their own learning and identify patterns themselves before being introduced to hard rules and formulas. This strategy allows students to gain a deeper understanding of why a problem is solved in a certain way. Specializing: Using specific examples to try to figure out a problem Generalizing: Moving from specific examples to a gener...

This week, our lecture was asynchronous, but it remained engaging and insightful. We went over the difference between assessment and evaluation, content vs performance standards, and different assessment strategies.  What stood out and what I learned Assessment Ongoing throughout the school day and year Many different methods of assessment  Observations Discussions Reflections Physical products and projects The gathering of information to identify strengths and weaknesses Used to provide students with feedback and to track progress Evaluation Usually summative (at the end of a unit or term) to gauge the outcome of student learning Judges the quality of work/knowledge of students Provide a value of success (levels/grades) Methods include: tests/quizzes Physical product and projects Presentations  I really liked the Lucid App, which was the resource used as the activity from slide 3. I think it was really useful because it allowed students to add their thoughts on a sticky ...

  Welcome back to the Alge-blog! This week's class was another interesting one! We explored the grade 11 and 12 math curriculums and the connections of concepts throughout the different courses available. We looked at the possible pathways students can take in grades 11 and 12 what is important to students in those grades. We also completed several new fun and interesting activities that I can consider applying in my future classroom. What stood out and what I learned In table groups, we looked at the different course expectations across grades 11 and 12 and put them into a table to show their connections. It is important to analyze the connections of concepts across different courses because students can be coming into a class from different pathways. For example, students in grade 12 university courses could be coming from grade 11 university or mixed class pathways. Understanding their prior knowledge can help the teacher to be more prepared to teach.  Furthermore, we dis...

Welcome back to the Algeblog! Another week of thought-provoking conversation and engaging learning.  What stood out and what I learned In this class, we focused on grade 10 math courses and trigonometry. We started with a math question that we worked on in groups, and everyone struggled with it since we haven’t done grade 9 math in so long. This made me realize how difficult it is to do a problem when it isn’t accompanied by a lesson and how challenging it can be to recall prior knowledge when it hasn't been practiced in a while. As a future teacher, I think this reinforces the importance of becoming familiar with curriculum expectations when planning lessons and activities. Students need to be guided with the right tools and scaffolding so they can make meaningful connections, rather than guessing what is relevant.  In my personal experience tutoring high school students, I sometimes overcomplicate the math work. I’ve been studying and practicing advanced university math for ...