Learning is Fun and Worthwhile

Alright, let's talk about data displays. I'm talking about pictographs, dot plots, stem and leaf plots, histograms, bar graphs, line graphs, circle graphs, and scatterplots.  They are all related and should come out simple. I really found it helpful the way my math teacher laid out all the different data displays.She used foldables and other technics, then checked our understanding of the whole unit through us creating a mind map. As we went through this unit in class, my work experience at an elementary school was going over a similar unit. I loved learning about data displays in class and seeing the kids experience almost the same learning. It really helped put it all in perspective. Here are some examples of the foldables we created to help us organize the characteristics of certain data displays. (sorry for the low-quality pictures) This tri-foldable features the pictograph, bar graph, and circle graph. It organizes information on their type of data (all numeric...

Statistics! Tell me truthfully if you like statistics. I'm sorry if you do because... I don't. Well after the lessons in math class I'm not as weary as I was before. In my experience math teachers are really good at making statistics all about a formula and nothing personal or relatable. Why? Statistics should be personal and should be easy to connect to. Thank goodness for my current math teacher who knows how to teach statistics. Anyway, here is a great introductory lesson to statistics. It's fun, simple, and again like my last post involves a snack! Everybody loves a snack, especially when it's M&M's. For this particular activity, we needed a fun size pack of M&M's and the packet/worksheet. We started off by making conjectures of which M&M color would occur most or least, as well as if we thought our individual data would match the classes as a whole data. My guess was that Brown would occur most often because of its color closeness to the c...

At the start of the semester, we did a Healthy Fish activity. This activity was fun and interactive. Plus we got a snack when we were finished;)  This activity involved a small snack sized pack of rainbow goldfish and a provided worksheet. It was interesting to see everyone's various reactions to organizing the goldfish at the start. As you can see I organized mine by color and in a pattern. I tend to like things neat and organized, and visually appealing. The object of the activity (which is listed at the top of the worksheet provided to us) was; to understand how probability was determined, to understand experimental versus theoretical probability, to understand the properties of probability, and to understand mutually exclusive and non-mutually exclusive events. We went through the series of questions and completed the worksheet guiding us to understand each of the objectives. The questions were based on the fact that the fish represented healthy and sick fish. The gr...

I have loved learning about teaching CLD’s. Before I took this class, teaching language learners was not something I was interested in. At the same time I started this class, I started my work experience at a school with a high population of CLD’s. I was intimidated at first because I felt like I didn’t have any tools to help them. I felt very out of place, and helpless. As time went on I got used to the idea of working with students whose primary language isn’t English. I stopped being intimidated and started seeing it as an opportunity to learn. (Image from Valdelsa.net ) This image to me represents cultural diversity. In class and through the ASU modules my understanding of CLD’s has been broadened. I no longer see them as someone I can’t relate too, or communicate with. Instead I see them as someone with a different cultural background who has a lot to offer in a classroom. I also see myself learning a lot from them.