Today in class we talked a little more about Gapminder. The questions came up about it being appropriate for younger grades. The answer to the question was simple yet not what I expected, try it out on someone who is younger and see what they think or what they can do. In this situation I can’t see any negatives to trying it out. This might just be a great site to expose the students to. Maybe that means the teacher uses it to help teach a lesson plan but not have the students be the ones to set up the graph. When the students are working with graphs and data, you could use this to supplement the discussion on what they are learning about. My project now is to give more thought to a kindergarten student using Gapminder. Google search did not give me any ideas so now it is up to me.
Another piece of information I am taking away from today is to empower students to teach their peers. Just like teachers learn more having to teach the material, students learn more when they are required to teach. Another benefit is in the process of being the teacher it helps the students to identify the areas where the material is unclear and needs more development. This reminds me of one of the articles we read about never saying anything a student can say. It might require some more work on the part of the classroom teacher, but allowing the students to “teach” and “say” all that they can, will help them become better learners.
I might say the best part of today was creating the paper boxes. I was very enthralled by this activity. I was not quite sure what the final product was going to be but was very excited to find out. There were two things that impressed me about this project. First there were a lot of math proofs that could be made by simply folding a piece of paper. Second, it was not just meaningless folds but we were actually working to create an end product. HOW COOL. Can all math be like this? This gave a real world application and it was meaningful. Now I have a neat little box to hold my earrings in.
Another piece of information I am taking away from today is to empower students to teach their peers. Just like teachers learn more having to teach the material, students learn more when they are required to teach. Another benefit is in the process of being the teacher it helps the students to identify the areas where the material is unclear and needs more development. This reminds me of one of the articles we read about never saying anything a student can say. It might require some more work on the part of the classroom teacher, but allowing the students to “teach” and “say” all that they can, will help them become better learners.
I might say the best part of today was creating the paper boxes. I was very enthralled by this activity. I was not quite sure what the final product was going to be but was very excited to find out. There were two things that impressed me about this project. First there were a lot of math proofs that could be made by simply folding a piece of paper. Second, it was not just meaningless folds but we were actually working to create an end product. HOW COOL. Can all math be like this? This gave a real world application and it was meaningful. Now I have a neat little box to hold my earrings in.
