On October 16th, 2014, Tom Ward, a Secondary MAC graduate and current high school math teacher at Greenhills in Ann Arbor, visited our classroom. I do not see myself teaching math in the future but I really enjoyed his presentation because he introduced novel ways to engage students with mathematics.
From my experience math has always been a really boring class and I always had a love/hate relationship with it. I feel that if you "get it" you love it; but ,if you don't... then it can cause great heartache. Teaching math can be a very big struggle. My mother was a math professor, bless her heart. She helped me a great deal when I was in school and without her help I would have struggled to learn many of the things that my math teachers rushed through. I feel that providing students with interactive ways to understand math can be very helpful for some students. Math can easily become a boring subject and this method would dramatically boost energy in the classroom. I do not know if I would have enjoyed watching a basketball video and guessing if a ball would land in a hoop. Because personally, I like boring and quiet classes but, that's just me. I prefer taking notes and listening to lectures. I feel that watching videos and using math to predict outcomes would be a nice thing to do for a brief time; but if done continuously, I would find it rather irritating because I don't like to learn that way.
I really enjoyed the points he made about Vine. I love Vine, and I feel as a biology teacher I could get really creative with using Vine as a tool in the class. It would be really cool to have students make a 10 second clip on something such as the function of the Golgi apparatus. I never would have considered Vine as a tool to use in the classroom and I appreciated that he discussed the legal issues (mind the pun) entwined with Vine. He mentioned that Instagram may be a better tool to use if you have students under the age of 18.
I would really like to see how the math field changes with the expansion of technology. I feel Mr. Ward is carving a novel and amazing path. He is using technology as a means to engage students with math. I am excited to see what other creative ideas he comes up with in the future and I look forward to seeing this trend occur in all classrooms. Many students were born into a world of technology, unlike myself. I believe that this knowledge will greatly shape the way I create lessons in the future. I feel that his presentation was very insightful and it was wonderful to see a secondary MAC alum transforming the realm of math education.
Sara!
ReplyDeleteWhat a treat it was to read this post! I found myself thinking many of the same things throughout the presentation. I too do not see myself teaching math, but many of the concepts that he was talking about could easily be applicable to a science class or even an English class. In fact, Muneer had us make vines as part of a lesson for our methods class last week. It was a real hoot! I look forward to reading more from you in the future! Keep it up!
Lunch boxes and bus rides,
Elliot
Hi Sara
ReplyDeleteEven as a Physics major and Math mi nor, I found all the strategies he mentioned refreshing. As a physics person, I see math everywhere. But I realized my students may not see that. I am more cognizant of things around me that I can take a short video of and show to my students, so the can relate to Math and science using everyday experiences. I do not have a vine account yet, but I want to get one so I can start posting all the videos I take. Moreover, I feel a 6 sec video can convey a lot if taken rightly.
Hey Sara!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what you wrote about Mr. Ward's presentation. I thought he presented really interesting ways of using technology in the classroom, and I think your idea of applying a Vine project to various parts of a cell, like the Golgi apparatus would work really well and I look forward to hearing about how that goes one day!
I think you made a very important point about meeting the needs of all your students, and I think often this idea of making content "interesting and engaging" can often mean group activities, exploration, interaction in ways that maybe not all students benefit from. Thank you so much for not allowing me to forget this, because it is so important to consider the learning needs of ALL your students.
I also agree with your excitement to see how technology changes mathematics education, but I think there is a lot of exciting potential for technology in science education as well! And I can't wait to see where that goes! Thank you for such an interesting and insightful post and I wish you the best of luck as you finish up this semester!
Jeni
Hey Sara! I agree with you on your positive look at the presentation from Tom, I feel the same way! It seems like he truly enjoys teaching math this way, for me, as a person who is easily distracted during long lectures. Having a class that engages the students will work best for students like me, but I also understand that using this method too much might irritate students who like more traditional lectures. I think there has to be a balance between these type of lessons and traditional lessons. I also did not about vine as a tool for the classroom, I think that this can be good for students to do a vine on how the inside of a cell looks like during cell division or like you mentioned, maybe a student can create a vine as if they were an organelle. I am afraid of using technology in the classroom because of the different way that this can turn into a problem. I think that in order to make this work there has to be careful planning and precautions that need to be taken.
ReplyDelete