This graphic,
created by students, was shared with me at a recent Adolescent Literacy
Professional Development session and I thought it was worth sharing here. I think there are a couple of areas of
particular interest for math educators.
1.) Practical Application: “Why do we have to learn this?” I am sure many of us have heard this before
and “because it’s in the curriculum” is not good enough. For me, the graphic reinforces the necessity
of sharing those real world connections and applications with our students in
order to get those “Ahhh..I get it!” moments.
2.) Technology: As we have discussed in the 7/8 Math course, there are many web
based tools available in math education.
This graphic confirms for educators, students desire for technology in
their learning. I thought “More Games” was interesting as we are learning that
math games are an important part of a comprehensive math program.
I like this post because I think it's something we all wonder about. And I think if you were to ask most teachers, they would probably tell you a lot of the same things, and so would our students. We can identify them, but they don't necessarily change all that quickly. From the time we see a student for the first time to the time we see them off to post secondary, education will have changed, but probably not all that much. It seems to be a very slow process. I think the problem we have is figuring out HOW to fix problems. The kids want technology, but we have a hard not just incorporating it for the sake of having it there, but to do it in an effective way. We want school to be more practical, but how do we do that consistently? I know a lot of really good teachers and they're teaching methods don't seem to have changed all that much from when they taught me. But it is changing. Really interesting topic.
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