Four weeks into the math course and I’m not quite ready to pull my hair
out…yet!! This is a good sign. Each class is different for me and I find myself
either being at the top of a rollercoaster, or the very bottom. During our week
3 class, we were all given the same math problem to solve. It was a word
problem, not my strong suit. As I was trying to break down the problem, Aman
was walking around telling people if they got the right answer or not. It was
making me feel a little anxious hearing people get the right answer as I was in
the middle of trying my best to solve it. Moments after she called time and we
had to stop writing. I didn’t finish solving and by the sounds of it I my
almost answer wasn’t the right one. We then had to switch our papers over to a
partner as they were going to analyze our work using the math processes. I
immediately looked at my work and even though I knew it was neat and eligible,
I felt a little hesitant giving up my work because I knew it was wrong.
The EQAO assignment was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It
was interesting to look at how people solve the same math problem differently
and still end up with the same answer. This made me think about marking in my
future classroom and how every child expresses how they learn differently. Having
to connect the questions to the curriculum was also useful as it gave us
another look and a chance to familiarize with the daunting book of answers.
Fast forward to the following week, we got into groups and looked at peoples answers to the math problem and talked about the math processes. This got me more comfortable with how to analyze them. This was also a good class as Aman brought us all snacks, and who doesn’t love snacks!!!!!!!!
The two games our group looked at was Prodigy and PearlDiver. Prodigy
was week 4 and it has a great reputation for being one of the most engaging and
effective web-based math platforms in the world that students love to play. It
is a game that requires solo play as you create an avatar, battle monsters,
level up and explores multiple worlds while learning and executing the five
core math strands. PearlDiver is a great game that focuses on number sense and
numeration. It teaches “properties of numbers, how to plot numbers, how to visualize
quantity on the number line, how to order numbers, and how to use the number
line a visual model for mathematical operations”. All by using scuba diving as
an interface.
