Week 05 discussion

The brainstorming session was fun. I knew making it was going to be simple, but finding the parts around was the hardest part. I decided to use trash I had already thrown away, that way I wasn't harming any useful materials. The elbow worked perfectly, bent back and forth and connected at the joint. There are tons of models of elbows and since it's very important to both the body and to robotics, knowing how they work is pretty cool.

Thoughts on why each post was made today
I had initially wrote down my journal thoughts in a Word Doc, and was not aware it had to be a website (my fault for not checking the rubric.) I just copied my thoughts from each day into a new post on the forum.

I also was checking cpalms for another class assignment, and came across the resources tab. There are a ton of science experiments, math lessons, and power points to aid the classroom learning if I ever need inspiration for my lessons. That link can be found Here (which I bookmarked of course)

W04 Reading and discussion for Wednesday and Sunday
Unfortunately I made a mistake and didn't initially post my response for "Wednesday" by Wednesday. I hope that's okay. Either way, the whole concept here about misconceptions is very important to know as a teacher. Students will come in with a wide variety of information they think is acceptable for a classroom, and that's okay. It's my job as a teacher to have them find out on their own why what they believe to be true is actually not a valid explanation for whatever phenomenon in question. I especially liked the examples given in the article, and how each type of misconception can be easily conveyed through a hypothetical scenario. The article has a lot of these tables and extraneous graphics to explain this, which is very helpful to understand the best way to combat misconceptions in the classroom.

W03 Sunday Discussion:
Obviously I'd gone through this before in the checkup post. I almost wanted to post the same thing I did in the previous assignment, but I realized there were things I changed and accomplished so I typed it out again to add those changes.

W03: Reading and Wednesday Discussion:
The reading from Sternberg introduced important vocabulary I'll need to use in the remainder of this course and the UF Teach program. Table 1 on page 275 is especially important, as it differentiates the areas of learning and how to best use each teaching method. My favorite method of teaching mentioned was Analytical, as I see it as a perfect balance between forming your own opinions to gain understanding, and teaching traditionally to cure misconceptions.

The Wednesday discussion was basically a summary of the article for me. I tried to relate it to how I would use each of analytical, creative, and practical teaching techniques in a classroom setting, but most of my information obviously would come from the article. I'm glad that we have these resources that are backed by years of research, because had I not seen this I would have been teaching in "my own" way, which may not be a bad thing, but definitely not as efficient as this.

W02 Discussion for Sunday
After reading the whole article, it was hard to find exactly one phrase that stood out to me. Mostly I just skimmed paragraphs through to find a topic sentence, word, and phrase or data point that stood out as important, and analyzed it to how it can be utilized as a teacher. I like how the discussions are clearly mapped out for what students have to do, rather than vague or essay-based.

W02: Reading and Wednesday Discussion
The Driscoll article was great to learn the history of the discipline of teaching. It seems so obvious how each method is a failure or inefficient, but it was those failures that led us to our knowledge of how people learn. The article suggests that learning is a cycle, where all information is built off of something you learned in the past. As a future teacher, I'll have to make note of that: building knowledge off what the students already know, that way the information is more relevant and accessible.

The first discussion for Wednesday was very straight forward. Everyone presented the same information for the process of finding the circumference of the earth, since we all had equal access to resources. My reply was mostly that of awe of how they did it so accurately in the past.

W01 Discussion: The Circumference of the Earth Problem
I read the two given readings "Do Learners Really Know Best" and "Interviewing in Mathematics Education Research." The first reinforced something I noticed about how children today interact and learn; how they become so engrossed in technology that information passes through them without them realizing it. It will prove a challenge to balance traditional teaching skills and project based instruction with this preferred method of learning of this new generation.

As for the discussion, it was fun to figure out the process behind the ancient Greek's calculation of the circumference of the Earth. I had heard the story many times before, I even did a report on Eratosthenes when I was in middle school, so this post was pretty easy.

Week 1 Discussion: Introduction
After taking so many online classes, this is to be expected for the first discussion post. It makes sure that us students know how to use the discussion forum through Canvas and to become a little more comfortable sharing our thoughts in the future. I like reading through some of the posts to learn more about my peers who may be in some of my other classes, but I never really have time to go through all of them.