5/26/10 Math Day 3

I really appreciate that we are learning how kids think. It is difficult trying to "forget" what I have been taught throughout almost my entire education, but it is slowly becoming easier. When we go over the different types of word problems and see the videos of the kids, it makes it clear the reason kids think the way they do. This makes it much easier to understand how kids are solving, or trying to solve, word problems. I really like that I have learned to ask the kid how they came up with a specific answer. This will really help me understand what the kid is thinking and how they are going about solving different problems.

I actually put this into action in my practicum class today. The students were learning about dimensions and they were supposed to draw the top and spine of their books. The teacher told them to hold up their books and draw what they saw. One of the students drew a rectangle in the center of their page and four smaller rectangles around it. The drawing did not look like the other students' drawings so I asked the kid to explain it to me. He told me that the big rectangle was the front of the book, and the other four smaller rectangles were the top, back side, and spine. Since the teacher didn't say to just draw two sides, this students drew all four while most of the others only drew two sides. If I just assumed he was just drawing a bunch of squares then I would have been wrong and the student would not have understood if I told them their drawing was incorrect. I am thrilled that I now have the mindset to ask the student to explain before I just assume the student does not understand the question or what the answer is supposed to be.

5/24/10 Math Day 2

Class was very interesting. Figuring out the word problem grid was challenging and I am not sure my group would have gotten as far as we did without the "action" clue from Dr. Shih. Even after we received the clue it was still difficult for us to figure out what problems went into each section of the grid. It seemed like we just stared at the problems for a long time. Then something happened! Some of the problems started to look similar, i.e. they had similar actions taking place inside of them. Once we figured out the first action of, as we called it, getting then it was somewhat easy to figure out the first 3 sections. It took us a little longer to figure out the next 3 sections but we figured out that they were basically just opposites of the first 3 sections and instead of getting, there was giving taking place in the problems. The last 5 sections were a bit tricky. We think we have the rows correct, but we are not exactly sure of the column placement in the last row.

It is crazy to think that all word problems fit into one of these categories. It is even more crazy to think that not a lot of teachers know about this. Knowing about the different types of word problems will definitely make it easier to help students with word problems. We now know which word problems to start out with that will be easiest for kids to understand and that is really amazing!

Math Day 1

I enjoyed Dr. Shih's first class. Before the class I was wondering how interactive 2 1/2 hours of math was going to be each day. I was pleasantly surprised that the class was extremely interactive and the time seemed to go by very quickly. Everything Dr. Shih taught really kept my attention and I was able to really understand what he was teaching. This was a relief as I do not really remember much about school math. I enjoyed learning that teaching math is not so much about memorizing math all over again, but instead learning how to teach kids.

The most exciting aspect of the class is that we are actually going to learn how kids think and learn. I think this is the most important part of being a teacher because if you cannot figure out how to help the students learn, then you are probably just going to be spinning your wheels. It was very interesting to see how Dr. Shih first had us try to solve a word problem and then how we worked backward from there to see how kids think. Being introduced to the four solution strategies kids utilize was eye-opening. I have always wanted to understand how to help kids learn but I haven't really had many professors who were actually able to teach that. I think the information we learn from Dr. Shih will be invaluable and I am thrilled to be able to learn a small portion of what he knows.

Laura Hamilton's Math Autobiography

My name is Laura Hamilton. I am in the Initial Licensure Program for elementary education. Because of this, my recent experience with school math is extremely limited. I graduated from the University of Wyoming in 2000 with a bachelor's degree in communications, so it has been 10 years since I have seen textbook mathematics.
From elementary to high school I do not remember much of anything math related. I do remember taking statistics in college, but I do not remember any specifics. I also remember having to buy an expensive scientific calculator and using that to figure out certain math problems. I still have the calculator, but now I just use it for basic math calculations.
Throughout my professional career I have used a lot of math, but I have often set up Microsoft Excel to do all of my calculations. I have just come up with the formulas to plug into Excel to make it do what I want it to do. I usually utilized Excel to figure out budget tracking calculations. I also used Excel to come up with other calculations depending on what I was working on at the time.
Now that I am attending school full-time again, I usually use Excel to keep track of my household budget. I do like math and I really love Excel. I unfortunately just do not remember a lot about math as it relates to learning in school settings. I am looking forward to learning best practices to utilize in teaching elementary mathematics!