The following assignment shows the progress I have made throughout unit EDC141: The Numerate Educator. Included are results from the first and second round of the Mathematics Competency Test (MCT). Examples from assessment two, which, involved me to complete sample questions from the year nine NAPLAN. I was also required to complete a variety of ‘thinking time problems’ (TTP’s) and ‘what I know about’ (WIKA’s). These activities allowed me to build on my knowledge and assisted me to develop my mathematical skills. The Australian Curriculum has six areas of mathematics, which I used in many different learning activities throughout this study period (Commonwealth of Australia, 2009). These six areas will be covered and include number, algebra,
geometry, measurement, statistics, and probability. Each area reflects on my confidence, attitude, and anxieties towards each of these learning areas. I have expressed my experience working with these learning areas and how I used them in everyday life. A variety of appendices have been included, which show my achievements throughout this unit.
The audience for writing project one: summary and response will be my classmates and my instructor, Avon Waters. I am writing this for English 111 – an online Ivy Tech college course. This is the first writing project of four for semester one. The assignment is to select a core reading resource from the group listed and perform a summary and response style paper, using proper APA formatting and introducing the concept of a situation analysis. The core reading piece I have selected is one that personally interested me, as it deals heavily with history and facts versus opinions and controversy. This will be in APA format, as with every other paper written in this course. My goal with this paper is to offer additional insight into the piece I
1) I believe that my theoretical curves don’t really match like figure 4 but then again it somewhat does. My immigration curve and extinction curve do hit each other once, but not like in figure 4 where they hit each other twice. Also my extinction curve is going up like in figure 4 and my immigration curve is going down just like in figure 4. So I guess you could say that my curves represent the curves on figure 4.
My biggest improvement in this English 111 class was my writing. Writing tasks that were assigned greatly strengthened my overall performance throughout the course, preparing me for the future classes. The environment made me feel at ease, helping me evolve as a student, and as a person. The environment made me feel at ease, preparing me for future classes. Another large achievement of mine that I displayed in the class, was my ability to talk comfortably with the other students. The variety of group activities we did allowed me to openly speak my opinion, leading to a better overall performance with my work and papers. The English 111 class enabled me to have better participation in and out of class and allowed
Place value and the base ten number system are two extremely important areas in mathematics. Without an in-depth understanding of these areas students may struggle in later mathematics. Using an effective diagnostic assessment, such as the place value assessment interview, teachers are able to highlight students understanding and misconceptions. By highlighting these areas teachers can form a plan using the many effective tasks and resources available to build a more robust understanding. A one-on-one session with Joe, a Year 5 student, was conducted with the place value assessment interview. From the outlined areas of understanding and misconception a serious of six tutorial lessons were planned. The lessons were designed using
To investigate the notion of numeracy, I approach seven people to give their view of numeracy and how it relates to mathematics. The following is a discussion of two responses I receive from this short survey. I shall briefly discuss their views of numeracy and how it relates to mathematics in the light of the Australian Curriculum as well as the 21st Century Numeracy Model (Goos 2007). Note: see appendix 1 for their responses.
Scholz, Simon. "Ability Groups: Ineffective on Ineffectively Used?" Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom9.2 (2004): 29-31. ERIC. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. .
As discussed that the national curriculum, places emphasis on all the pupils in the foundation phase should be exposed to mathematical understandings that give them many possibilities “to do, talk and record” their mathematical thinking. The total amount of time spent on Mathematics has an influential impact on pupils’ progress of mathematical conceptions and skills. Learners should be engaging in different activities that are clearly focused on the mathematics in the CAPS document and not on activities which educators call “keeping themselves busy”. It is no wonder that some schools find mathematics in the foundation phase as a failure in the school system. My basic claim is to use multimedia to teach mathematics more effectively in the foundation
Sherley, B., Clark, M. & Higgins, J. (2008) School readiness: what do teachers expect of children in mathematics on school entry?, in Goos, M., Brown, R. & Makar, K. (eds.) Mathematics education research: navigating: proceedings of the 31st annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australia, Brisbane, Qld: MERGA INC., pp.461-465.
As I wrote this assignment, I felt as though I was put in a situation of that of a normal EC teacher. I had to use my writing abilities and communication skills to make sure what I wrote could be understood by every parent, but not to over-educated nor to under educated in my writings.
Mathematics is its own language, and no matter what language a mathematician speaks, his ideas will be understood by all dialects. Since mathematics is a language, it has its own discourse, and has its own unique way of reading and writing. The Board of Studies Teaching & Educational Standards NSW ([BOSTES], 2016) explains how students should develop an understanding and fluency in mathematics. However, a few methods outlined by BOSTES (2016) to achieve this fluency are inquiry, exploring and communication. This presents problems for low level literacy and EAL/D students since the main issues they face with learning is that they struggle with forms of communication, whether it be written or oral.
Skemp, R (2002). Mathematics in the Primary School. 2nd ed. London: Taylor and Francis .
The prominence of numeracy is extremely evident in daily life and as teachers it is important to provide quality assistance to students with regards to the development of a child's numeracy skills. High-level numeracy ability does not exclusively signify an extensive view of complex mathematics, its meaning refers to using constructive mathematical ideas to “...make sense of the world.” (NSW Government, 2011). A high-level of numeracy is evident in our abilities to effectively draw upon mathematical ideas and critically evaluate it's use in real-life situations, such as finances, time management, building construction and food preparation, just to name a few (NSW Government, 2011). Effective teachings of numeracy in the 21st century has become a major topic of debate in recent years. The debate usually streams from parents desires for their child to succeed in school and not fall behind. Regardless of socio-economic background, parents want success for their children to prepare them for life in society and work (Groundwater-Smith, 2009). A student who only presents an extremely basic understanding of numeracy, such as small number counting and limited spatial and time awareness, is at risk of falling behind in the increasingly competitive and technologically focused job market of the 21st Century (Huetinck & Munshin, 2008). In the last decade, the Australian curriculum has witness an influx of new digital tools to assist mathematical teaching and learning. The common calculator, which is becoming increasing cheap and readily available, and its usage within the primary school curriculum is often put at the forefront of this debate (Groves, 1994). The argument against the usage of the calculator suggests that it makes students lazy ...
When I graduated from high school, forty years ago, I had no idea that mathematics would play such a large role in my future. Like most people learning mathematics, I continue to learn until it became too hard, which made me lose interest. Failure or near failure is one way to put a stop to learning a subject, and leave a lasting impression not worth repeating. Mathematics courses, being compulsory, are designed to cover topics. One by one, the topics need not be important or of immediate use, but altogether or cumulatively, the topics provide or point to a skill, a mastery of mathematics.
The final assessment piece for term 1 is a personal reflection that is centered around our previous quiz results. These past few weeks each student was asked to complete a quiz based on numeracy and literacy concepts that are important to our development as a 21st century teacher. These skills are an important concept to all teachers as they are used on a daily basis, sometimes even subconsciously. Numeracy practises are a skill that teachers are required to be competent in. this component i find myself confident of as i have previous experience as a stage manager for theatre productions, working at markets and as a waitress in a local cafe. This confidence is backed up by my scoring on the final quiz, that was based on numeracy practices, achieving a 10/10. These skills will be more than adequate in teaching Biology and Geography in the eventual completion of this course. Continue use of these practises will constantly improve my ability.
Throughout out this semester, I’ve had the opportunity to gain a better understanding when it comes to teaching Mathematics in the classroom. During the course of this semester, EDEL 440 has showed my classmates and myself the appropriate ways mathematics can be taught in an elementary classroom and how the students in the classroom may retrieve the information. During my years of school, mathematics has been my favorite subject. Over the years, math has challenged me on so many different levels. Having the opportunity to see the appropriate ways math should be taught in an Elementary classroom has giving me a