Math Education

With tax season at its peak many people are wishing they had the skills and know-how to file their own return without the need to pay an accountant or purchase a software to do it for them. If taxes are such an essential part of adult life, why don't we learn them in school? The answer is: you can  but you aren't required to . This is something that I was surprised to learn throughout my time as a student as well as in my exploration of the Ontario Mathematics Curriculum during my time in the Teacher Education Program. There are courses offered, such as MEL4E: Mathematics for Work and Everyday Life that provide the necessary knowledge needed for topics such as taxes, budgeting and interest that are key skills to have for everyday life. Despite the huge benefit that taking a class like MEL4E would have, it is often stigmatized and seen as a course for students who don't excel at math or won't need math for their future education. How strange that we categorize our st...

In class we had the privilege to participate in an activity that Jenna led us through. It was the most engaging and exciting math activity that I have ever used and I can definitely see students really enjoying it in a real classroom. Jenna split the class into four groups and each group was provided with a toolbox that had many locks on it. We were provided with a crossword puzzle to start off and there were a couple other clues that were available to be retrieved from different compartments on the box. As a group we had to work together to solve the puzzle, complete math problems, and figure out lock combinations to open up our box. It was so fun to see what each clue would reveal and to figure out each step of the puzzle. Racing against our classmates provided an extra sense of challenge and determination which only added to the fun. My group came in a close second, which we were very proud of. The prize at the end was opening up a bag of chocolates to share among our group. Th...

My first block was a great first experience teaching in a high school classroom. I had the opportunity to teach a Grade 10 Academic Math class and it was a true testament to my passion for teaching and a clear indicator that I was right where I have wanted to be. I got to finish up a unit on quadratics, teaching concepts such as completing the square, quadratic formula, and problem solving. This was definitely a tricky unit for my students, as each new concept in quadratics builds off of the previous one, and many students struggled to keep up with the pace. Overall the unit was well done, although it is safe to say that the students were very happy to be done with it when it was over (seeing as it was the last of 3 units on quadratics). During this unit I was able to use Desmos to make graphing and visually representing quadratic functions quick and easy for my students. I often used this technology during my lessons and I also allowed students to use it for exploration activities. Th...

This past week in class we had a lesson instructed to us by two of our peers. They each chose a different activity to teach a lesson from the same grade and strand of math. This pair chose to present on Grade 9 and 10 Academic math. During their presentation, I was introduced to a website provided by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (https://www.nctm.org/classroom-resources/illuminations/interactives/algebra-tiles/) where students could use algebra tiles to model and solve equations. This technology blew me away! I was originally introduced to algebra tiles in the fall when a partner and I prepared a lesson on Polynomials to teach to our cohort class as part of an assignment. We had never heard of or used this manipulative before, but we quickly taught ourselves how they worked and were able to use them with ease. Our lesson went very well and I found that students who were unfamiliar with the mathematical concept of adding and subtracting polynomials, or who were not ...

When I was in high school it was common for us to use graphing calculators when we needed a quick way to visualize functions. I found it fairly simple to plot a function on the calculator, but there were a lot of commands required and it was difficult to memorize all of them. I found that we needed to have a re-introduction to them every time we needed to use them. While it was fun to have an unfamiliar piece of technology to use in the classroom, it was also frustrating at times. In class we had the opportunity to use graphing calculators combined with motion censors to simulate position-time graphs. Many of my classmates had never used a graphing calculator, so it was something that was new and a change from our regular methods of problem solving and modelling. Despite our excitement, my group discovered that the technology could not connect or did not work properly once it was connected. We tried many different combinations of calculators and motion censors before we disper...

In class we were introduced to a type of activity for problem solving called the Japanese Bansho Method. Ottawa Bansho defines Bansho as "a method of teaching developed in Japan that focuses on teaching math through problem solving. It allows students to see connections and progressions of the thinking involved when developing strategies to solve a problem" (https://ottawabansho.wordpress.com/bansho-in-the-class/). At first glance, this method seemed the same as the gallery walk activity that we had used in a previous class. However, this method takes solutions one step further by having students group and categorize solutions based on level of difficulty. We began the activity by solving a problem about a class with a certain number of boys and girls in it. This appeared to be a fairly simple problem, however we were again challenged to create multiple solutions. Each different solution was written on a separate piece of paper and posted on the board. Once all of the solut...