Hey everyone, welcome back to the blog! A few days ago, we had our seventeenth class for EDBE 8F83. In this post, I will reflect upon this lesson by using different prompts and supplementing them with images and resources.
What struck you during this session?
Something that struck me during this session was how conjectures can come up while doing a problem. Before this session and during the reading, I felt that I would never use conjectures in my math class. However, after tackling our problem this week I realized that conjectures can simply just be ideas that come up while solving a problem. For example, if you look at the attempt of my solution below, my conjectures were just the ideas I thought the next term of the pattern might be 5n+10. This has made me realize that I do not have to necessarily use the word conjecture, but it is important to teach my students to do this. This could be done by encouraging them to write down their inquiries and theories on their papers and have them investigate what they can do with it.
What were the dominant emotions evoked (affect)?
One dominant emotion evoked in me was a change in attitude. As I explained prior, I felt that I would not use conjectures in my classroom. However, after this class, I have changed my views and values regarding this topic. I think this has shown me how I cannot have a fixed mindset. It is important as an educator that I am adapting, changing and being aware of anything I can use to make my classroom a better place. I feel that we often hear that old teachers will not change their ways and will not adapt to new strategies and tools. I need to ensure that I am not pushing aside new practices and tools, and going into everything with an open mind.
What for you were the main points (cognition)?
The following three points summarize what was discussed in our lesson:
Conjecturing is useful to work on our reasoning and proving processes. Conjectures allow students to learn from reasoning and make generalizations based on what they have found from their conjecture.
Technology is an important resource available to us. It doesn't have to be anything new and exciting, but using it supplements students’ learning. It can be a worthwhile process to see what works and what doesn’t and how you can use it in your lessons.
In the math curriculum, we can use tools such as calculators, manipulatives and graphing technology to name a few. Two examples of graphing calculators that can be used are Desmos and Geogebra; their links are provided below!
https://www.geogebra.org/?lang=en
Something that I might want to pursue further is researching some different technology tools that I can use in my classroom. I think that math is one subject where technology may not be as strongly used. In my other teachers' college classes, we use online polling websites, word clouds or discussion prompts. These are the tools that I am being exposed to and although I could use these, they would probably be less useful to me than someone else in a different subject. I think I need to consider how I could use these more appropriately as well as find some new ones that I can use. In our current world, technology is very important and I need to use it the best way I can in my practice.
That's all from me today! I hope you enjoyed reading my post and I hope you will be here for the next one!
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