Good, but the 8 minutes in the middle needs to be broken down into the different activities that will take place. 1 minute at the end may be a bit too short -- I would allow for 2-3 minutes.
The earliest positive memory I have of math is when during a tutoring session when I was around grade 1. I vaguely remember scoring a perfect on my test and getting to write my name on the star board. From that point, I remember being very confident in my math abilities throughout elementary. My parents would say I had a 'talent' in math. I believe it was around grade 7 where I started learning about integers and I was struggling. This was the first time I had ever struggled with a math concept. I remember having to redo the test around 2 or 3 times until I finally understood the material. This led me to understand that even though I was strong in other math areas, there were some topics that I would not grasp. I believe that failure has humbled me as a student and gave me a new perspective on math education. As I got into high school, I quickly realized that I was not the only one who was good at math. There were many other students who I thought were much smarter than me. ...
Richard Skemp describes instrumental understanding as 'rules without reason'. When he was giving such examples in math, it made me think of my time as a student in high school. I remember learning trigonometric identities and using them to solve problems, but I didn't understand what they truly meant. I did not understand where they came from and why we used them, I only understood how to apply them. This is the main difference between what Skemp describes as relational vs. instrumental understanding. Relational understanding answers why, whereas instrumental only answers how . Skemp tells us of these mathematical mis-matches, where the student's goal is to understand instrumentally, while being taught by a teacher wants them to understand relationally. Up until grade 10, I was one of these students who only had a instrumental understanding of mathematics. I had an amazing teacher who taught us in this relational way of understanding. This teacher ...
Good, but the 8 minutes in the middle needs to be broken down into the different activities that will take place. 1 minute at the end may be a bit too short -- I would allow for 2-3 minutes.
ReplyDelete