This is a blog about the mathematics class I am enrolled in at the University of Auckland Faculty of Education. The task set before us is to complete a log detailing what we have discussed in class and my thoughts etc. I’m not entirely sure how to go about it so I thought the best option would be to begin a blog online and pass on the link to my lecturers Gillian and Caroline. I’m not too sure at this stage whether the task is strictly for 603 because my thoughts will also contain ideas from 601 so here goes:
I started this log a good week and a day after it was suggested that I start one, this is partly due to basically settling into uni and trying to wean myself off of work but now that I’m well and truly in the swing of things I can focus on tasks for uni. Right, well due to starting this late I will summarize my learning across the entire week. Frankly though my week has been filled with so much, from meeting new people, finally sitting in classes that I have really wanted to be in, learning about instrumental learning and relational learning, pascals triangle, opening our minds up to the many different ways to explain a given principle, really trying to figure out why things happen i.e. why is it that when you multiply a negative by a negative it equals a positive. ALSO (I write in capitals when I get happily excited I’m not shouting ever, I’m not a shouting kind of guy) where on earth can you find a real world example of this ever occurring? It’s great when I come home to discuss my day with my wife, she would describe herself as very maths anxious and hates even simple addition/subtraction. She freezes up when she has to do maths infront of a customer and succumbs to mighty calculator to figure out $77 – $28. She is not alone, I know that there are many people out there with just the same issue. Also interesting to note, she was brought up with learning only instrumentally, even basic multiplication like 3 x 2.4 makes her go off and use the long multiplication method when it could be done far quicker and easier using addition. I think that was the key thing I learned last week was the difference between instrumental and relational learning Caroline helped a lot with her airport example.
Okay I’m keen to keep this brief, I’d hate to think what Gillian and Caroline are going to think if they saw all my blogs were this long, so yesterday we looked at fraction division using counters, this model is really good for establishing the foundation of knowledge that will be used extensively when dividing much larger fractions that can’t be done with a counter. Almost forgot! Pascals Triangle! We looked at that and all the crazy number patterns it has within it. I had no idea it was so wild like that, Our homework was to find a pattern in it that we hadn’t discussed in class the one I found is the fibonacci sequence, hard to explain how to find the pattern but I know it pretty well off by heart.
Well as far as logs go this one was pretty easy to type out, I think I shall call this a success and I will certainly be posting more as the year progresses.
Homework: Read P & K 1994, visit numeracy website, find a good source for teaching online (tki, nrich google etc.)
Assignments: Fraction division, Log
People I have met and know names off by heart: Emma, Laura, Maaike, Lauren, Tavita, Siosi, Ben Coop, Phillip, Lakshmi (very easy name to remember), Peter – that’s 10 ppl- not good enough
Okay bye