Teaching Mathematics

Growing up, math was always my least favorite subject, it was boring and tedious and I was never particularly good at it.  This course however, has taught me to see the fun in math!  Measurement in particular is another great unit to incorporate alot of hands on games for the students. Whats great about measurement is that it encompasses various different components, which makes activities fun for students.  One great way to get students engaged and learning about measurement is through measurement Olympics.  Whats great about this activity is you can differentiate it to be geared towards your students specific needs.  Areas of improvement can be incorporated and you can add different mini games that focus on the specific areas of measurement you are looking at in class.  Measurement Olympics is also great to have students practice their predictive skills.  Having students guess what might happen and explain why they think that can help students arti...

Who doesn't love shapes?  Geometry is all about shapes and their attributes and properties.  Students who are very visual and have a passion for drawing have a particular interest in geometry.  This is a great unit to get those students who otherwise may be checked out during harder lessons such as fractions or algebra.  This unit can also increase student morale as it is very interactive and engaging for all students- even those who struggle.  Geometry encompasses much more than just shapes however!  Geometry also helps students to discover patterns, find areas, lengths, angles and volumes.  All the these properties are embedded in our everyday lives, therefore geometry helps us better understand the world around us.   Though geometry is all about shapes and seems very fun, there is  a lot  of information to cover in the unit and it can be very easy for teachers to fall into a routine of worksheets.  The issue with thi...

Proportional thinking and reasoning is perhaps one of the least obvious of curriculum strands as well as, one of the most difficult as it requires a high level of critical thinking.  It is the strand of mathematics that requires students to be able to compare and make ratios and further, have the ability to mentally store and process several pieces of information.  Though this is maybe one of the least obvious of strands, it may also be one of the most used strands in everyday life. The above picture is an example of a problem solving question that we attempted in class.  It really highlights just how prominent proportional thinking is in our everyday lives- especially when grocery shopping!  I think most of us, at least us students are always looking for the best deal when shopping.  Being able to compare quantities multiplicative is a mathematical process we have gained over the years maybe without noticing, as shown above through grocery shopping. ...