Gladus and mandeep's Reflection on "Apprenticeship and workplace11"

The main objective of this course is to provide the mathematical  understanding and critical thinking skills ,so that the students can enter into the trades at post secondary and for direct entry into the workforce.
Topics of this course are:
* Investing and Borrowing money
*Managing money
*Working  with graphs
*Slope and Rates
*Linear Relations
*Surface areas
*Volume and Capacity
*Drawing shapes and Objects
*Solving Right angle properties
At the end ,the assessment of what student has learned is done by the two methods ;ie Formative & Summative assessment

Battle Ground Reflection

 The article “Battle Ground,” presents the argument, which resonates every math teacher.  There are two reasons behind that. The first reason is, it makes us as math teachers to critically evaluate our teaching methods, whether our teaching gives the learner enough pace to do experimentation with the problem or it expects just the right answer from the learner by following the well-established formulas.  I totally agree with the Dewey’s argument in which he advocated the development of high quality mental process and scientific attitude. For instance, I remember the time when I was in grade seven and taught by the traditional method. At that time, it was very difficult for me to digest those formulas. Consequently, I do not want my students to suffer from the same difficulty. Hence, I am eager to teach my students by involving them in exploring the problem rather then telling them to follow some steps.

Ninja star with paper

 In my micro teaching ,i chosen  paper  folding activity to make a ninja star in order to relate maths  with art.  According to my peers they considered it as a wonderful presentation and steps involved are easy to follow. Time is a  little bit constrained , they want to make more .On the other hand, if i would give more future applications of that model of paper ,then it would be good.  I am also thinking in the  same way as if i have more time than i will assess them formally ,how they will do it independently. As they did that activity following me. For the future application i would have mention its uses in maths project .

Micro teaching topic

 Name Mandeep Kaur Kanwar

                                                                                                                                                           Topic: Paper folding activity

Objective:  Students will be able to pull and push to  make  the Octagon into starand vise- versa

Hook:  Students we are going to make the Ninja – star.

Material required: Scrap- paper of different color.

Prior knowledge: Student should know how to handle scissors and fold the paper.

Activity as well as the Assessment:

 The students are doing the activity along with the teacher. The teacher is doing the activity as well as scaffolding the students and assessing them whether they are able to do the activity by themselves or they need help from the teacher.

Application: Students can easily use their knowledge to find the number of sides of an octagon and of the star.

Resource:

 http://www.whatdowedoallday.com/2015/03/transforming-ninja-star.html

Soup can problem

The problem is quiet tricky, I uses the following pictures and dimensions from the internet to get the estimation of the bicycle, actual tomato soup can to find the solution of this problem.

I took the dimensions of the bicycle, which is below.

         

As it is clear from the figure Stand over height of cycle is 27” inches, therefore diameter of the back wheel = 27”-0.50”=26.50”(approximately)

 Also diameter of front wheel=24” that means its radius =24”/2= 12” 

     Similarly, Radius of back wheel = 26.50”/2 =13.25” 

  

 Therefore, finally we got the length of the bicycle

= Radius of back wheel +wheel base +radius of front wheel                

=13.25”+38”+12”

=63.25”

Moreover, Height of the bicycle is approximately =Stand over height +3”=27”+3”=30”

 

When I measure the length of the bicycle and length of the soup  (water tank) from the picture then the length of the soup can is approximately 3 times the length of the bicycle

 Hence, as the length of the bicycle is 63.25”, length of the actual soup cane (water tank ) is 3 times of 63.25=  189.75”

Again,when I measure the height of the bicycle and diameter of the soup (water tank) from the picture then the diameter of the soup (water tank) is double the height of the bicycle 

Hence, If the height of the bicycle is 30” as we found above, then the diameter of the water tank is 2 times of 30”=60” or its radius is 60”/2=30”   

  Therefore from above I can concluded that the Campbell’s soup water tank container’s height is 189.25”,and its radius is 60”

The volume of Campbell’s soup water tank  container =22/7*R*R*H

                  = 22/7*30*30*189.25 

                  =535,307.143 (cubic inch)

 As 1 cubic inch= 16.3870640693g

Hence, the above volume=535,307.143 *16.3870640693 g =8772112.449094937g

In case I have to find the relation ship between the numbers of actual soup can and the capacity of the above water tank (soup) can, then the procedure is as follows

 I am taking an example below to get the volume of actual soup container

In this case the volume of soup container = 305 g

.

Let us assume that X number of soup container were needed to fill the above container

 Therefore number of actual soup container I=8772112.449094937g /305g 

                                                                        =28761.025 approximately

                                                                        =28761 number of cans

Reflection on our 72 pencils sculpture

  The sculpture which I was supposed to make is with 72 pencils, but I want to make it unique, so I took wooden sticks instead of pencils .I know, it might be easy for  most of the people, but I tried 3 times before I made the final product. Every time I tried, my kids were also so excited to  help me , they are trying to do their best effort for the accomplishment of the sculpture. They hold the sticks together.

 Finally ,we made it with 64  sticks  with 8 faces of rhombus.The ends of 16 pencils forms the  rhombus shapes . I was worried that I have not made it with 72 pencils but thanks to Susan, she appreciated our work .She named it as Rhomboidal sculpture.It was fun while doing that sculpture .As we can use it our classroom to show the different parts of rhombus ,its diagonals and its properties.    

Letters from two different future students

                                    
                                                         Letter 1

Dear Mrs Kanwar

 My self-A, I was your student in 2009.I am writing this letter to express my gratitude to you for your love, care, and motivation. Do you remember, ones you appreciate me in front of the class. I will never forget your words, “ you did a great hard work, and I believe you can do it, keep it up”. I was a dull student in your class, but these words motivate me to work harder and harder to get good grades in math. I like the way in which you involve the whole class in the group work knowing the strength and weakness of each individual. Moreover, whenever we were tired of solving the math problem then your brain break activities again energizes us. As I was an ESL learner in your class and always hesitated to talk in English, but you always encouraged me to talk in English and listened my ideas with patience and interest. I appreciate your understanding and guidance. With your inspiration, I am doing bachelors of education in math to become a teacher like you. I know you will be proud of me. At the end, I am again thanking you for making my future.

Sincere Regards

   A 

  

                                        Reflection of the letter 1

  This letter encouraged me to use various strategies and methods while delivering math lesson according to the strengths and weaknesses of the students. In addition, I found that connection with the students and giving them support has the huge impact on their development. If the students know that someone is there to help them then they are more enthusiastic and go beyond their abilities. Therefore, I should always try to minimize the gap between my students and me to stimulate learning environment.

                                                        Letter 2

Dear Ms Kanwar,

 My name is B. I was your student in 2009. Like other students, I also appreciate your hard work and the various activities you used in our class to promote learning. The only thing, which I could not understand, is your cursive writing. Sometime it is very hard for me to distinguish between “i”  “r” and “e”. Moreover, when you wrote something on the blackboard, they were not even in the straight line. I am sorry that I did not tell you about that before. Do you remember, once you called me to the blackboard and I solved the math problem, my writing was also not legible and straight. However, you appreciated me at the end regardless of my writing.  That is why I am telling you now because I do not want that somebody else would say the same to you. Thank you again for all your support. 

Kind Regards

   B

                                  Reflection of second letter

  

The above letter clearly suggests me to work on my writing skills on the blackboard. No doubt, writing of a teacher is the most important mode of communication with the students. Therefore, I should encourage students to find out my mistakes and shortcoming, as we all know that “mistakes are the proof that we are learning”. Therefore, at the end of my class I should ask my class, if they have any suggestions they can put that in the suggestion box by putting anonymous name, if they do not want to disclose their names.

Mathematics for Social Justice

When it comes to the topic of mathematics, everyone is readily agree that math is a difficult, boring and scary subject. They think like that because they do not know the answer of “why and how,” behind every math problem .For example, “Why they are using the various math formulas and how the math problems are related to the real life situation. They consider math as a separate entity, which is not true.

 It is impossible for us to ignore the presence of mathematics. Mathematics is everywhere whether we are at home, outside, at work, or at school. In today’s fast pacing life, math makes an individual ideal and punctual. Moreover, if math is neutral from environment and social justice than environment changes can never measured and society have no concern with the figures. As a result, the number of social issues can  neither be measured nor controlled. I strongly agree with the author’s point of view of integrating math with the outer world .If math connects with our social and environmental context then it becomes easy for the students too, to think and relate the problem with their surroundings. The outcome is the better understanding for them.

After this reading, I believe each of us will definitely integrate math with social and environmental justice. No doubt, the absence of flexibility in secondary school curriculum does not allow the teachers to practice the various ideas of teaching, but this piece of reading is a source of encouragement for us. I do not think that there is such topic in the secondary level math, which has no connection with social justice.

As it is clear from the figure three circles, denote the three dishes of rice, broth and meat. As two people share the rice dish, therefore I divided it into two equal parts so that each person got half the portion of rice. After that, I divided broth dish into three equal parts as three people share it and each person got 1/3 part of broth. Similarly, I divided the meat dish into four equal parts as four people shared it so that each person got ¼ of meat. Overall, each person got half of rice ,1/3 of broth and ¼ of meat  which is equal to 1/2+1/3+1/4 = 13/12 of the total food of each kind . As there are 65 dishes therefore total number of person who will share 65 dishes =65/13/1.

      Chinese people so far I know are very polite and friendly .I think, the above puzzle also reflects     the same as they are sharing their food as well as their dishes as mentioned. Moreover, this puzzle is from Ancient China fourth CAD, it means sharing food is in their tradition. Hence, there culture makes them more social.