Jenna Stanbury's Math Blog

Hey everyone!      I'm here today to talk about how students learn and take in math concepts, while creating their own meaning and understanding of what they are learning. I think that it is very important that as math teachers, we need to acknolwedge that not everyone is going to love math, like we may have. When you're teaching a class, there may be students who say they hate math or that they don't understand "anything", which can be defeating when you think that you're teaching everything in the "best ways possible". This can happen in any class, where students may be confused with concepts and content, but I feel as though math is an area where students may struggle, because some teachers create such a narrow field that students have to land in, in order to succeed. Tons of people say that in math there is a "right or a wrong answer", therefore making is easy to fail. Take a look below, here are some results from a simple google search...

 Hey everyone!! Today I wanted to share and discuss some of the resources that I have learned about over the last couple of months from the Ministry of Education site and the OAME website! When I was first introduced to the OAME website, I had never heard of it and I had no idea how to navigate this site. I was overwhelmed because there were so many different resources, lots of different links and I was downloading zip-files to my computer by accident. Once I became familiar with the site and I was listening to other students' findings, I was able to navigate the OAME website comfortably! In this post, I would like to share some of the great resources that I found through the sites, or that I was introduced to by other classmates! Here we go! TIPS4RM: TIPS4RM stands for Targeted Implementation and Planning Supports for Revised Mathematics. This is a page on the Ontario Ministry of Education site that has unit plans, lesson plans, assessments, and other resources that you can use i...

Hello everyone! I am here to update you all on how my leading a learning activity went, and what I learned from it! Last week, I led a grade 10 Applied/Academic Trigonometry activity, while focusing on Similar Triangles. When I chose my curriculum expectation, I was pretty excited because I was supposed to focus on the application problems involving similar triangles. I thought about what I wanted to use as an application problem, and I thought that using shadows would be great to find missing measurements. I ended up creating 2 problems, the first was a visual problem, where I created an image with measurements. You can see the problem below: 1. Using similar triangles, solve for the height of the Brock Schmon Tower. For this problem, I used geogebra and I messed around with the site so that everyone could work together on the site to solve the problems, but I was unable to figure it out. While creating this image, I lost my work twice, so it took me a while to create the image and be...

 Hey everyone!! Now that the Winter break is over, we can get back into the groove of MATH, MATH, MATH! So at the end of last semester, we created Digital Word Math Problems, and I created mine based on cost per product and figuring out which product would be a better deal if you were feeding a big group of people. I thought that this activity was super fun! At first, I thought it was going to be difficult to come up with a math problem, but once I read over the curriculum expectations in the grade 9 math curriculum, I found myself coming up with so many different problems, that I had to choose one that I thought would work best! I truly believe that authentic assignments are extremely important in creating opportunities for your students to make connections between their education and their personal life. These types of tasks allow our students to think about the concepts used, and how they could apply them to other scenarios in their lives, which helps them develop a relational ...

 This semester has been jam-packed with excellent strategies and resources that we as teachers can use in our future math classes. I have created a list of 10 ideas that have stuck with me, and that I would like to implement in my future math classes so that I can be the best teacher that I can be! 1. Specializing & Generalizing Specialization and generalization are two important factors in problem-solving. These two concepts are used together to help you UNPACK the question so that you focus in on specific examples, in which you can then find patterns that can be useful to generalize your ideas to come up with a solid solution. If these two concepts are used together, then this can help improve our students' mathematical thinking. "Specializing with an eye on the 'why' rather than the 'what' may lead to insight into  what is really happening" - John Mason, p. 4 2. Being Stuck Being stuck isn't always a bad thing! Many students feel discouraged whe...

Reflection and metacognition are super important in gaining a deeper understanding of the mathematical processes that you're using when problem-solving. Many students simply solve problems but they may not think about the steps they are taking or the strategies they are using. In the last few weeks we have focused on the internal motor and reflecting on the key ideas and to intensify the critical moments! The use of internal questioning and internal reflection definitely strengthens your understanding and arguments, which consolidates the learning even more! Some things to think about when you are problem-solving & questions to consider: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ Getting Started ~ What is the question as a whole? What is the question asking me? How is this question like others that I've enjoyed? How is it different? ~ Getting Involved ~ Which notions can I introduce? Are...

Over the last couple of weeks, we discussed the difference between Relational Understanding and Instrumental Understanding, as well as the idea of Convincing and Justifying our ideas.  Instrumental Understanding is the idea of "rules without reason", which is when people know the rules and procedures but don't understand the WHY behind these procedures. I find that there are many mathematical procedures that I know, but I may not be able to explain the WHY. For example, I recall memorizing the quadratic formula without understanding why it works. Instrumental Relational Understanding is the idea of knowing both WHAT to do and WHY you do it. This type of understanding requires critical thinking where you must dig deeper to figure out how certain procedures and rules connect and how they can be applied. I noticed that through university my critical thinking skills have developed, which has allowed me to deepen my understanding allowing me to gain a relational understandin...

Over the past few weeks, we have focused on the different phases involved in problem-solving! The Entry Phase, the Attack Phase, and the Review Phase! These three phases are all critical during problem-solving and learning through math processes.  Entry Phase The entry phase is super important when beginning a problem. When learning about this step, I thought about my experiences and how much teachers would prepare us to solve a problem, but personally, I wouldn't stay in this phase for long at all. I noticed that I skip this step most of the time, and jump right into the problem. I have learned that this step is important to ensure you have everything you need, you know what the question is asking, and you have a pathway to go and steps to follow. Attack Phase Most would think that the attack phase is the most important step in solving a problem. Don't get me wrong, the attack phase is crucial in problem-solving, but all 3 phases are very important! The RUBRIC method gives us ...

 Hey everyone! 😊 This week’s topic focused on the idea of Specializing and Generalizing, which go hand in hand when solving problems. Chapter 1 of the textbook was very engaging, as it defined the terms, it gave great examples that allowed me to reflect on my thinking and problem-solving strategies, as well as it listed some strategies that may be helpful to students when working on problems.  This week I was the ‘Word Watcher’ in the Reading Roles discussion. I found this role extremely helpful, as I was able to have a deeper understanding of the terms, which therefore helped me understand how these approaches would be used. Some of the terms I pulled out of the chapter were: Specializing Generalizing Resolutions STUCK! AHA! Check Reflect Rubric I definitely thought that this chapter gave some great ideas that we as teacher candidates can use in our future classrooms, such as STUCK, AHA, Check and Reflect! During our online lecture this week, I could definitely see how all s...

  Hey everyone! My name is Jenna Stanbury and I am in my fifth year of the Concurrent Education program at Brock University, with my two teachables in French and Mathematics! I have a passion for education, and I can't wait to collaborate with other teacher candidates who have the same passion and who also enjoy mathematics!   I will use this blog to personally reflect by connecting the methods, strategies and content taught throughout the EDBE 8F83 course to my experiences, ideas, and opinions. To me, mathematics is a fun way to think critically and to solve problems, so I want to use this blog to gather new ideas and to build off of my own experiences to bring together ways to engage students in mathematics! I hope to use this blog as a platform to gather strategies to use the mathematics curriculum in a fun and engaging way in the classroom! It is extremely important to ensure all students are being taught the content within the curriculum, so I hope to explore fun and inte...