Thank You and Goodnight!

Well, mathletes...

This is the end of our journey. The end of the line.  The big shah-bang. The final countdown....for now.

So where have we reached?  I came into this course fearing math and to a large degree those fears have been reduced.  I knew nothing about math congresses, gallery walks, why manipulatives are so important, never heard the term fraction plates, understand the importance of putting math into real life contexts for students, and didn't really think math was a 'group work' type of subject....and then EDBE8P29 happened. 

At first I really had difficulty understanding why we would bother using open math problems. After weeks of creating them though, I get it.  The idea is that we want students to stretch their minds and confining math to a set of rules and ideas that fit into nice neat boxes just doesn't really work.  If we want students' minds to stretch, open math problems get them thinking in ideas rather than formulas and rules.  It also boosts confidence, which I've discovered is key with math. With open math problems, any student can get started.  They have such a wide base, and by wide base I mean that students of varying ability levels can all get started on them.  Best of all, open math problems can be applied to literally anything students can relate to.

Believe it or not, I learned that math can be fun.  This semester we incorporated Hershey's chocolate, skittles, jube jubes and, my favourite of all time - Oreos.  Talk about developing positive associations.  Apparently Oreos can be more addictive than a certain illegal substance.  Which one? You'll have to do the googling yourself, but Oreos are one way to get students addicted to math!

Speaking of fun...and now for a short math-inspired musical interlude

 

The thing I feel like I benefited most from was teaching the mini-lesson on integers.  This really made me get into the big ideas and look for ways to try and relate what I came to understand to others in ways that they could understand it.  In order to do this, I went to my personal go-to: real life contexts.  I believe the best way to understand something either new or unfamiliar is to associate it with things that are familiar to us.  In my lesson I related negative numbers to negative experiences and that as we added those negative experiences, our moods became more negative.  This works the same when adding negative integers, which can often be confusing for students because they are used to numbers increasing in value when they are added, not decreasing which is what happens when negative integers are added together.  At the same time, when we subtract negative integers (or experiences), things get more positive and the numbers increase in value as a result of subtraction - again, something that can be difficult to get used to for students.

Overall, I just feel like my math aptitude became better.  I was able to understand the connections between concepts better than I did when I originally remember being put through the math paces as a student.  It was also a great refresher of the building blocks needed for more advanced concepts in math that curious students will no doubt be asking about.  Further, it was great to go through this semester surrounded by the group of students in class who all had their own struggles with certain math concepts and ideas, and weren't afraid to acknowledge that either.  I feel like we had a really supportive bunch and that the regular ability to work in pairs reduced a lot of pressure I was initially feeling and allowed me to learn directly from my peers.

And this, mathletes, ends the semester of math.  Thank you, good night...and may the schwartz be with you.

Stay mathematical, mathletes.