Video work #2

The second video work was done for the grade level of seven and focused on “lessons and graphs.” The teacher explains that she made multiple graphs showing different things. The students broke off into groups of their own making and were given a copy of the graph. She wanted the students to be able to come up with their own pattern of the graph in table form and to come up with the remaining values from those that were already existing in the table.

1. Describe how appropriate you think the primary task in this lesson is for developing an understanding of the mathematics being taught.

By having the students coming up with their own stories they are able to look at the material in a more personal level. This will hopefully help the students bring more personal interest in the material along with them putting more passion and pride into their work. Taking this information and building it around math hopefully will help the students bring about more understanding of why the connections relate to one another.

2. Propose one or more alternative tasks that might have strengthened the lesson or helped to clarify the key mathematical ideas being developed, and justify the use of this task or these tasks.

The students could have each come up with more than one story and related them to one another. This way they would have had more experience in the comparing and contrasting aspect. Representation could have been used more too which could have been used in ways like building things actively or using the students to build a life-like graph.

3. What criteria do you use to determine whether or not to use a particular task with your class?

I am novice teaching right now in a 7th grade social studies class so I can relate well to this topic. Every time I am about to do a lesson I try to think of ways to connect with my students on a personal level. Also, knowing what my students enjoy learning about could prove to be very useful. This aspect of my teaching will come with time as I learn more about my students as I am around them day in and day out.

The overall use of the video was helpful as it gave a real life example of good teaching. There are numerous things that I could see myself making use of in the future as I go through my teaching career. The movies showed a little light on the things that I could better myself at and hopefully in time I will be able to master quality learning techniques.