Math Reflection Week 6: Math Curriculum

  One of the activities that really stood out to me today in class involved us using paper cut outs of math curriculum expectations and matching them to example activities.  A picture of the activity and the cut outs is posted below, and if you're curious you can also read the Ontario grades 1-8 math curriculum here.  I performed this activity with a partner and even with two minds working on it it was still surprisingly challenging.  This is due to the fact that some of the curriculum descriptions and expectations sound a little vague, and you think that these examples could fit into more than one grade level.  Usually it gets tricky when deciding between two grade levels that a nearer to each other, like grades 7 and 8.  Although I like how this activity had us reading through the curriculum and getting a better understanding of the goals for each grade and how assignments meet those goals it still came across as a little strange to me.  This assignments is a test of our knowledge of the curriculum and mathematical processes.  It assumes we are unaware of what grade level we are designing activities or lessons for, so we mix and match.  In reality I do not think that this would come in handy.  For example if you are hired to teach a grade 6 class you would focus on the math requirements for grade 6.  I think it would have been more useful and applicable if we were given a single grade and many different activities and were required to find the one that just applied to that grade level.  It was a little bit of an overwhelming mixing and matching activity with all the different grade requirements.  I would still considering doing a mixing and matching activity using paper manipulatives like this for my class though.  

 

Michael Feagan. (Sept. 20 2016). Math Curriculum [photo].

   Over the past week I also got the chance to try another math game.  This weeks math game that I tried was called Dirt Bike Proportions.  It's a simple game in which you race dirt bikes, and your dirt bike goes faster is you answer a multiple choice question on simple proportional fractions.  When you answer a question correctly the bike moves forward, when incorrectly it stalls.  At the end of the game it tells you what questions you got wrong and the correct solution.  It is similar in terms of game mechanics to a game a played a few weeks ago but did not write about, Integer Orbits.  Although I think using games for math classes is a great idea, I also think that you need to keep the games fresh on a deeper gameplay level, not just changing the theme and the curriculum.  

  I had a great math week overall, getting the chance to try and improve my knowledge of curriculum expectations is always welcome as that is something I will always be doing in my professional career.