Week 10 Reflection
This week the focus was on probability and data management and I finally got the chance to do my own lesson activity for my classmates. My lesson was focused on probability and specifically talked about being able to predict frequency based on theoretical probabilities and create physical representations of probabilities. I provided my group with several spinners, each with a different probability of landing on a winning section. Based on the theoretical probabilities I asked my group to predict how often they would win out of 10, 20 etc. spins and then spin the spinners to test how close they were. After discussing the process of determining outcome frequency, I gave each of them a different winning probability, of which they had to create their own spinner that would match this probability. They then gave their spinner to a partner to test how close the outcome came to the theoretical probability. This experience was a very useful process for me as it was essentially my first attempt at creating a lesson for students (even if those students were 20 something adults). This has helped me become a lot more comfortable with the idea of teaching to students in my placement as I have a practical experience of what it feels like to teach.
As it turns out I was able to find an online tool that allows students to create, predict, test, and track their own spinners and conduct their own experiments.
For this week, I noticed that a lot of what we learned relied heavily on past strands, specifically fractions and decimals. Due to this, it would be very important to me during my placement to ensure that some form of review on those key concepts was done before beginning the unit. I need to ensure that I'm not attempting to assess their probability skills when the real issue is lying with another strand that they did not effectively build upon, if they were not prepared for probability, I would need to ensure I went over the fractions and decimal portion of the number sense and numeration strand before beginning this unit. Upon writing this sentence it occurs to me now exactly why I see so many teachers ensure that they begin the school year with the number sense and numeration strand. I had assumed previously it was already designed to be the "basic"math strand, but had never truly connected the idea that the strand was so integral to the other strands that it was almost necessary to begin with it to determine student readiness and the order the rest of the strands will need to be taught.
With this strand, the idea discussed in class of teaching with games though gamification has never been more relevant. This approach allows me to provide a hands-on experience to students and makes it significantly easier to provide applications of this unit in real life. I remember in my time in school, my teacher had us "invest" in the stock market as a way for tracking data over time but also probabilities of future changes to stocks. Although I never participated in the stock market in my life, I distinctly remember my entire class being fully engaged with this unit over the novelty of making this math fun.
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| Dobbin, J. (27 May, 2017). Conducting Chance Experiments with Spinners. [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculumlessons.com.au/2014/05/27/conducting-chance-experiments-spinners-mathematics-lesson-plan-probability/ |
For this week, I noticed that a lot of what we learned relied heavily on past strands, specifically fractions and decimals. Due to this, it would be very important to me during my placement to ensure that some form of review on those key concepts was done before beginning the unit. I need to ensure that I'm not attempting to assess their probability skills when the real issue is lying with another strand that they did not effectively build upon, if they were not prepared for probability, I would need to ensure I went over the fractions and decimal portion of the number sense and numeration strand before beginning this unit. Upon writing this sentence it occurs to me now exactly why I see so many teachers ensure that they begin the school year with the number sense and numeration strand. I had assumed previously it was already designed to be the "basic"math strand, but had never truly connected the idea that the strand was so integral to the other strands that it was almost necessary to begin with it to determine student readiness and the order the rest of the strands will need to be taught.
With this strand, the idea discussed in class of teaching with games though gamification has never been more relevant. This approach allows me to provide a hands-on experience to students and makes it significantly easier to provide applications of this unit in real life. I remember in my time in school, my teacher had us "invest" in the stock market as a way for tracking data over time but also probabilities of future changes to stocks. Although I never participated in the stock market in my life, I distinctly remember my entire class being fully engaged with this unit over the novelty of making this math fun.
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