Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The end. No, wait, not yet.
Thus draws this summer session to a close, and it is approaching time to return to our schools and teach, some of us for the first time. Personally, I'm ready to take what I've learned here and apply it to the classroom. I've witnessed those moments of euphoria where students, after having spent a great deal of time and effort attempting to solve the problem, they finally arrive at the solution. It's extremely empowering for them to have done it on their own with little to no help. It will take us a great deal of work and planning to arrive at that point, but I think that once we get in there, it's actually pretty fun to let go and see what they're capable of. Heck, I think we all witnessed that at Sandtown last week!
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3 comments:
Using Algebra to solve students’ male orientated task and female orientated task.
a. Male orientated task:
Four students started a business during the summer break to remodel old cars and sell them. They were paying $600 to rent an empty barn as their workshop and obtained the old cars for $250 each and the materials to for remodeling cost $410 per car. The remodeled cars with better shapes and big silencers were sold for $1,500 each. How many remodeled cars should the students sell to obtain a profit of $7000.00, $8,000, and $10,000. Explain sequence of steps in getting the results and the use of placeholder, prepare a table of two columns showing profit and number of cars made and plot a graph of profit against number of cars remodeled. Prepare a table of two columns of total cost and number of cars made and plot the total cost against the number of cars remodeled. Explain the use of the two tables
b. Female orientated task:
Melanie is shopping for work clothes. She has found a dress for $75 and a two-piece suit for only $60. She does not have enough money for both, so she must choose only one. Of course, both are "dry clean only." If her dry cleaner charges $4.50 for a dress or $3 for each piece of a suit, which will be a better deal in the long run? How many times will she have to dry clean the purchased item before it is the better deal? Plot the total amount used to purchase the two piece suit and cost of dry cleaning for 5 times , 10 times, 15 times and 20 times against these numbers of times she dry cleans i.e. 5,10,15 and 20 times. Do the same for the dress on the same graph sheet. Explain your findings
Refection on our first group practical teaching at Sandtown Middle school
The teaching process went very well. The use of different shapes of containers and the measuring of the length of the water level in each container every 15 seconds was very engaging to the students.
The hook of a cold soda and or a hot coffee left on a table over time to depict the concept of change was very simple and was easily grasped by the students.
The pleasant surprises to the students was that the length of the water levels in some containers did not change within some specific time intervals of 15seconds despite pouring water into them due to the different shapes of the containers. The graphs produced were also different illustrating the differences in the shapes of the containers
One of the team members decided to work independently and got a different result, he was corrected and reestablished in his group.
The language of expression such as fundamental concept was a little bit too high for some of the students while some understood perfectly. The usage of multiple similes would be appropriate.
My tongue biting experience at Sandtown Middle School.
I had my first practical engagement in teaching at the school. My group said that the tasks effectively engaged the students. The sense of critical thinking of the students was highly tasked. Although, a group of students was able to solve the problem a level 8 grade task without procedures and explained the solutions to rest of the class, the task could span more than one class period. Also my choice of vocabularies would require a step down. My vocabulary has to be appropriate with the grade level. Initially when none of the groups was getting the required solution I almost had to bite my tongue. The concept of LET GO held me back from telling them the answer, which would have eroded their confidence. But they made mistakes, realized their mistakes and made appropriate corrections and this enhanced their confident levels.
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