Unit 2 discussion
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Mathematics
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Feb 20, 2024
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Unit 2: Discussion Question
Reflect on “Chocolate Algebra” from this week’s reading assignment.
Which of the identified qualities of best practice in teaching mathematics are represented in this lesson?
How can you apply elements of this lesson in your teaching at your grade level?
The teacher in the article for this week's assignment
is Katie George. Katie approached teaching algebra in a different approach. She took what some people see as a challenging topic and made it more interesting by using objects that would capture the attention of her students. Since the students could actually see the chocolate, it became a visual representation.
Physically seeing the candy is a motive to get students engaged with the math problem. Katie used chocolate with her math problem to explain how adding and subtracting can help solve linear equations. She used the student's prior knowledge of adding and subtracting to build on top of her new lesson with graphing and linear equations. By doing this, students will see the patterns involved.
For example, the text explains how the chocolate bar numbers would be higher and the tooties rolls would be lower. As the chocolate bars are lowered, the tooties rolls's number would gradually become larger. She showed a visual representation of that on a graph. This helps to connect the math problem with a real world situation.
Katie also had the students engaged by answering the questions she had. When she began graphing the numbers, she had the students describe the process on where to place her graph. The idea of this, is to get students to see the numbers and how to do it so they are able to retain the information.
I teach Biology for 9th grade. In Biology, students study a wide range of topics from states of matter, geochemical cycles, food chains, cells, genetics, and much more. I can use this type of technique to show how student's ecological footprint can impact their environment. Instead of using chocolate bars, we can use the wrappers (the trash). I will place one wrapper on a table to represent my singular trash. I would explain, that it does not seem like a lot. Then I would have all the students to bring their
wrapper and place it on the table. This will help to show that there is now more trash. I would then explain, that if everyone in the school was to place their singular piece of trash, it becomes even more.
I would usenthat example to explain how one person's trash may not seem like a lot, but if everyone is
doing the same thing, like throwing plastic away instead of recycling it, it becomes a much larger problem for the environment. Then I would begin my lesson on the ecological footprint and how we can reduce ours at an individual level.
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