Blog Post #8: Leading a Math Activity

Welcome back everyone!

It's been a couple of busy weeks for me but I have a lot to catch you all up on. This week I led a learning activity for my math class and I think it went very well. I wanted to reflect upon the process to think about what I can do differently next time or what I can add to the activity!

The activity that I ran was for a Grade 12 Academic Advanced Functions class. The unit that I covered was polynomial and rational functions, however my focus was on the key features and characteristics of the graphs of rational functions. My class really enjoyed the investigative approach that I took for the activity as well as my execution of the debrief prior to the activity. I provided everyone in the class with the following handout prior to engaging in any activity or debrief discussion. 

After going over the definitions of the different characteristics of a rational function's graph, I applied them to the basic rational function of f(x) = 1/x. After the example, I broke the class into groups of 2-3 and sent them off to apply their knowledge through investigating different graphs of rational functions. While each student was off working on investigating the features of these graphs, they were filling out this jamboard to help organize their observations. I found that this collaborative approach to investigating the key features of the graph allowed students to build on each other's thinking. Furthermore, having the handout open in the next tab allows students to refer back to the terminology and both check and reflect on their answers. Following the breakout groups, I brought the conversation back to a larger class discussion to consolidate student learning and go over the answers in the tables on the jamboard. This also provided students with the opportunity to ask questions and clarify their understanding on certain key features. 

Upon receiving feedback from my peers in my class, I was able to see what went well in the activity and what I could change for next time. My classmates really enjoyed the activity as a whole and expressed their liking for the layout of the jamboard as well as the handout. However, I did receive an insightful piece of feedback that really made me think. I was told that next time, maybe check with the students to make sure that when we are talking as a class, that they are still okay with me sharing my screen when pulling up their work. This was really eye-opening for me as some groups may have struggled and felt embarrassed that they did not have much of the charts filled out. I really appreciated this constructive feedback as it allowed me to really take into consideration the feelings of my students as I would never want to reinforce any feelings of math anxiety. 

Overall, I think that this learning activity went really well! I would definitely use this lesson in one of my future classrooms if I am lucky enough to ever teach Grade 12 Advanced Functions. I think it is always so important to reflect on how your lessons go as a teacher because it is key to know what to change for next time. Improving your lessons should be an expectation for all teachers as you are always getting new students in your classroom and it is important to strive to meet their learning needs.  

Anyways, that's it for me today! I feel like the next time I lead a math lesson or activity that I can better my approach in certain aspects through reflecting on this experience and utilizing the feedback that I received from my professor and classmates. There is always room for improvement when you're an educators so keep on reflecting! 

Until we chat again next time... 

Signing off, 

        Ms. Blackwell

Blog Post #7: It's Curation Time!

Welcome back everyone!

This week I want to discuss with you all a new term that I have learned this week in teacher's college. The term I learned is what it means to curate resources. At first, I was a little bit confused on the idea because I thought it just meant research, however I'm glad I was taught otherwise! Curating resources is so valuable for us future teachers! So let me explain what it means to curate resources....

Curate essentially means to bring together resources and share them as a collection. Combining resources into folders or files in a creative and organized way is referred to as curating resources. This is useful as an educator because you can collect an abundance of useful resources throughout your career to implement within the classroom. As we curate, we can ensure that we are always looking to improve our pedagogical approaches to the curriculum. Curating resources can provide teachers with a way to keep their lessons fun and engaging while also meeting the students in their zones of proximal development. So what are you waiting for? Let's get curating!

Now that I have explained to you all what it means to curate as well as the value in it, I would love to share two websites that I recently came across to help you start your new curation journey! I learned of this website just last week and I love it already. The website Cube for Teachers allows people to create an account and start curating instantaneously! As a future high school math teacher, I have started curating different resources that will enhance the quality of my lessons. Some of the resources I have curated include engaging worksheets, activities, tutorials, printables, and games that will add many more collaborative and interactive elements in my classroom. All it took was a simple search of "high school math resources" and I was amazed to see all the different resources that came up. With a simple click, I was able to add all the resources that I liked into my mathematics folder. 

There is also another website called EDWIN that allows users to curate resources. This website is a great curation tool because it even has a presentation embedded within the site that walks you through how to use it. EDWIN will enable teachers to search, collect, and share these resources in lessons or activities in the classroom. Just like Cube for Teachers, EDWIN promote the development of pedagogical approaches to constantly push teachers to enhance their lessons and unit plans. 

There is so much value that comes with curating resources that it is important we take the opportunity to start developing these folders and organizing them according to our wants. Starting early will push us to become better prepared for teaching in the classroom setting once we are officially teachers! 

Now, despite today being a slightly shorter blog post, it was definitely an important one! As future educators, we need to be constantly building our repertoire of resources through curation. Like I mentioned in my last blog post, even teachers need help and it is important that we take all the help we can get! Reflecting upon my university experiences through my undergraduate degree and my first year of teachers college so far, I can see the value in curating resources. As a future high school mathematics teacher, I want to be constantly implementing engaging elements to my lessons to keep students interested. I think that it is so important to keep up to date on different and innovative and creative pedagogical approaches when teaching the math curriculum. Curating resources is not an intimidating process once you become more familiar with the steps to do so. Take a look at the two curation websites I linked above to start curating resources for yourself. I hope this experience is as exciting for you as it was for me. Happy curating!

That's all from me for today. Until next time....

Signing off, 

        Ms. Blackwell