Week 6!

         This week we focused on our last section in the strand number sense and numerations, touching upon Ratios, Rate and Proportions. A ratio can be expressed as either a fraction (2/3) or a ratio (2:3) expressing a comparison of quantities that are the same units. A rate is a comparison or ratio of two different measurements that are different units, for example, distance and time (110km/hr). Lastly, proportion is an equation that shows equivalent ratios in fraction form, for example, 3/4=9/12.

        Some things that stuck out to me this week were the activities within the presentations. Below you will find a picture with 3 fun, and engaging activities that you can use in your classroom to teach these concepts!

        On the left you will see two pie charts, the students were asked to organize the different foods into their food groups and label the percentages of each group onto the pie graph. I think this exercise is very beneficial because they are not only looking at a math problem but are also incorporating health concepts into the lesson as well. Students are required to know their food groups in order to complete this question to answer it correctly. In the second portion students are asked to than show the percentages of foods that are junk and healthy food. Here again students should know the differences.

       In the middle we played the price is right, looking at different bookstores and the different costs per round. For each round the students were asked to figure out what bookstore would offer the cheapest value for 5 books. This question is beneficial for students to use if they were at a grocery store, shopping for clothes or trying to figure out what store would offer than the cheapest and best deal.

       On the right, we looked at a recipe that I thought was creative and interesting because students can also go home and attempt to make these oat bars! It looks at the quantities of each ingredient, and asks the students to alter the recipe that is originally for 10 people, for now 30 people. I think these types of questions are great because it is incorporating real life situations for the students to see the connection with what their learning in the classroom and how they can use it in their daily lives. This makes learning become more meaningful!

       The great thing about all these activities is that you can modify and alter them to different concepts or subjects within your classrooms! Creating a fun, creative and positive learning environment that connects to real-life situations that they can take out of the classroom. It's nice when students are able to see a connection with what their learning, and can give that extra motivation to learn!

Week 5!

For this week’s math class we focused on integers, adding positive numbers, and negative numbers together! For example, 5 + (-3)= 2.  A tough concept for most to grasp onto so what was great about this week was we learned some different manipulative a teacher could use in the classroom to create a better understanding environment for students. Some manipulative that can be used are: base team blocks, connecting cubes, games, spinners, and counters. Using manipulative’s is beneficial for students because it allows them to visualize something and move it around, whereas seeing the numbers on a piece of paper may be intimidating and confusing for some.

What really stuck with me this week was a riddle that helps students remember and understand integers. This riddle is about a Town, and uses good/ bad people leaving and entering the town as positive or negative factors to the town. 

I think applying riddles like the one above, songs and visuals is very beneficial for students to learn a concept. It allows them to remember something easily and can potentially stick with them in the future. I know I would reminisce with friends and talk about the fun things we used to do in school and laugh at the fact that we still remembered it. This is what I want my future students to be like, I want them to look back and say remember this time? or I have no problem with multiplication because my teacher made us sing a song I still remember. I hope to make a positive impact on my students in the future, and believe that this is a better approach for students to learn as it will end up sticking with them longer than you think, rather than memorizing something for a test and already forgetting it a week later. 

And that's my wrap up for this week! Stay tuned for Week 6!

Week 4!

Welcome back!

This week we focused on decimals and fractions. I was one of the three students to present  and I focused my lesson solely on the relationship between decimals and fractions. To prep for my presentation and develop a better understanding of this topic I found this Youtube video extremely helpful. Fast forward to 3:40 to the decimal portion of the video.



It is important to teach students the meaning of each number value before AND after the decimal as this video outlines the base-ten number system. For example,  14.738 represents (1 tens, 4 ones, 7 tenths, 3 hundredths and 8 thousandths).  I highly recommend looking at the example she demonstrates at 4:30 minutes in the video to use in your classroom as an introduction to this topic. It provides a clear understanding that I believe will help students get comfortable right off the bat!

Roland O'Daniel. (February 25, 2010). Exit slips. (Online Image). Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2cVWoyi 

Above you see an image of three different ways a student demonstrates what 0.9 can represent. Students LOVE visuals, and what better way to teach students fractions then with PIZZA. Yes you read that correctly, it wasn't your hunger taking over your mind. Pizza is a great representation that you can use to explain fractions to your students, but be careful with this because if the pizza isn't perfectly circular each piece cannot be equal to one another. 

I found this fraction pizza game online called Tony Fraction's Pizza Shop. It creates orders at the top screen, allowing the students to create the pizza on their own and pressing "send" when they completed the order. If the student creates the pizza correctly they get the cost of the pizza in their earnings, however if the student gets the order wrong, a message appears on the screen stating "Incorrect. Your costumer is not happy. $2.00 off" that comes out of their earnings. I think its a fun way for students to learn, and can motivate students to see how much they can earn (even though it's not real money...sigh). 

Regarding our time in class, after presenting I reflected what went well and what did not. This is great to do to know what to change and keep the next time I choose to use this activity again. I definitely enjoyed creating a lesson because it allowed me to refresh on this topic as well as participate in the other lessons to get more ideas on how to present this information. I want to introduce one last activity that I enjoyed from this week, this is the Tarsia puzzle that teachers can make online. This concept allows teachers to use different math questions and have students try to solve the problems correctly to create a shape. Below, as you can see we were close but not close enough. We did not end up completing it but it was definitely motivating and I can definitely see myself creating a puzzle for my lessons in the future!

Until next time, Happy Thanksgiving!!

Week 3!

        This week we touched upon two different concepts that I found interesting, and worth sharing. These two concepts are instrumental understanding, and relational understanding. Instrumental understanding comprehends through steps, such as a formula in math focusing on how to solve a given problem. This is usually only short-term learning, because students are often memorizing formulas but do not understand the actual meaning behind it or how to do something. I can relate to this when I look back to my math classes in high school. Working as a group, or asking the teacher questions just so we could get the assignment done quick and hand it in. No one wanted to sit down and take hours to complete something that could be completed in just under an hour. Also with testing, the teachers usually never gave the formulas to us so I remember having to memorize each one before we had to write a test.
        Whereas, relational understanding is comprehending the concept itself, this includes the “why’s” and “how’s” of the concept. For example, the students know why they are using the specific formula, and how the formula is going to help them solve that problem. This is usually more long-term learning because students can process and understand the information that makes it easier to remember. I think it is extremely important to have a mix of both instrumental and relational understanding incorporated into teachings because students need to be introduced to new things such as a formula, but also need to be taught why they are learning it and how it is beneficial to them in the long run. When I look back I remember associating a formula to a question because it just worked, but never knew why or how it worked. As a future educator, I want to make sure I emphasize relational understanding so students don't look back and think to themselves "I have no idea why I learned that" as I have said previous times in the past.

Lauren. (March 11, 2005). Math Fail. (Online Image). Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2dlKmKB

      This week we also had some fellow teacher candidates present some math lessons focusing on number sense and numeration. One lesson that stuck out to me in particular taught common multiples. In this lesson the teacher candidate had us participate in an activity that allowed students to apply what they have learned in a new way, and what I liked about it the most is that you can use the question more than once by changing the item and cost of the item. The question addressed the prices of new books ($6.00) and used books ($4.00). It then stated that one individual bought all used books, and the other individual bought all new books, however they both spent less than $15.00, but the same amount of money. How many books did each individual buy and what was the total cost? Our teacher candidate presented the information sheet well with little books to represent the used and new ones, as well as a “What we know” box to organize the information that was given. I am a visual learner so I loved this presentation, and would love to use this activity if I ever had to teach common multiples in the future. I also think this is a great example of relational understanding as well because you are taking a math concept and then applying it to a real life scenario that students can relate to. This gives them the idea of how and why were teaching them to understand these concepts.

Week 2

Hello everyone and welcome to my second blog post!

Mathematics…don’t we all just cringe when we see an equation? Growing up having to suffer in a data management, calculus or functions course and at the end of the day complaining how much your brain hurt? Yeah I’ve been there too…I believe there is a negative opinion on math but it is slowly turning over to a positive one. While I grew up I only enjoyed math when I understood the questions, and felt overjoyed getting a question correct. However, when I couldn’t understand a question or kept getting the final answer wrong I just wanted to pull my hair out! I was one of those students that worked hard to figure things out to get it right and to feel that accomplishment because that’s what kept me motivated. I think what makes a good mathematics student is to be able to fail at times and be successful at other times. Failing is not a negative thing, people can learn a lot from their failures. Having to struggle and figure out questions will only help the student understand it and remember it longer.

Starting my next chapter as a teacher candidate I did consider potentially having mathematics as a second teachable, but then I thought to myself and laughed. I was never super strong at math, I did well but I was no human calculator. During my first week I learned that the best math teacher is sometimes someone who struggled with math themselves. Being able to break down the questions for the students and relate to the struggles their dealing with is HUGE! Sometimes people who understand it too well have a hard time breaking it down for the people who don’t. This is where I thought to myself and said you know what maybe I could do it! I actually volunteered in a grade 5 classroom and every time I came in they were focusing on math. Believe it or not I did enjoy it.

What’s also exciting is all these games people have come up with that involve math and this is where I see mathematics turning into a positive opinion! I strongly believe if you give a student a chance to play math games online they would enjoy it much more than the traditional “sit at your desk and finish this sheet of equations” approach.  This is exactly what I would be implementing into my teaching when I have the chance to because I think if its fun the students will stay engaged and once their engaged they will learn!
Regarding some areas of the mathematics curriculum that I will focus on learning over the next few weeks of this course would be the grade level I will be completing my placement in. However, this is still to be determined at this time. I also think it would be best to look over the areas that I need to refresh on to become a better educator.

            In the following link there is a Demolition Division game for students in Grade 3 or 4 that could be beneficial to use in the classroom! Enjoy!

Check out this awesome Demolition Division Mathematics game geared towards Grade 3 and 4 students. https://t.co/wzqX6MWEdF

— Nicolina S (@n_strkalj) September 22, 2016

Mulan. (July 14, 2011). Funny Math. (Flickr Image). Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2deMCIP 

Introduction post

Hello and welcome to my mathematics blog! 

My name is Nicolina Strkalj, and I am currently a Teacher Candidate in the J/I division at Brock University, where I also graduated in 2016 with a Bachelor of Physical Education (Honours) Degree. I am excited to see what this year has in store for me and I look forward to becoming a future educator! 

During my spare time I enjoy playing soccer, volleyball and exercising either outside or at the gym. I also enjoy traveling and have been to Cuba three times, Croatia, Florida, New York, and Montreal. My plan is to go on one trip a year to pursue my love for travelling and explore new places. I am a very outgoing person that loves to try new things such as skydiving. Crazy right? My parents thought so too...but I would HIGHLY recommend going. However, I would never try bungee jumping...now that's crazy!

This blog section is here to provide helpful strategies and ideas to create a more positive atmosphere regarding mathematics in the classroom, as many people are known to be scared of this subject. Throughout this course I hope to learn how to create successful lesson plans that will be fun and engaging for my future students. I hope to become more confident in the material and become the best educator I can be. 

So, if you are an individual that struggles in math and hopes to become more confident with the material join my journey throughout this blog! 

Below is an avatar version of me!