Week #1 Posting & My Grade Level, Content Area & Goals

Hey Everyone, welcome to my first posting. Hopefully I'm doing this right! To start off my personal learning path, I want you all to know what I will focus on this semester. This semester, I would like to explore 4th or 5th grade math and my first focus will be measurements and data, such as area, perimeter, and volume. My secondary choice will be on numbers and operations in base ten. I enjoyed this area as a child, so I am interested in seeing how it being taught currently, and how it can be relatable in other math topics. My goal for the end of this semester will be to make math safe, fun and relatable to the population that I serve using real-world connections.

The three cards problem that I had to do on blackboard helped remind me of my how I used to practice math as a kid. This was the diagram that I used to help me solve the problem:

    At first, this problem doesn't really seem to relate to measurements of data with area and perimeter and such. However, when I drawing the "cards", I remember erasing the lines because they didn't make rectangles and it really distracted me. After a while, I just let it be, but it took me back to when I was a child and my teachers would tell me what makes a rectangle or what makes a square, and why I had to make them straight lines to prove so.

    I think this relates to my goal because it makes me wonder if other kids have the same distraction that I had when drawing the lines to make the "cards". Maybe if I were to do a similar problem with them, I would tell them not to worry about drawing a card or not even focusing on how they were to draw a card to make them more comfortable in doing the work and not how they're doing the work. Creating norms in my room to cultivate an idea of learning without judgement can be helpful.