This weeks readings definitely gave me better insight into how children think as they learn more about mathematics. I never would have thought about inclusion until reading the article, "What You Need to Know About Beginning Number Concepts". I always assumed that children would naturally know that all objects are included when counting. I did not realize it was a concept that developed, and we as teachers need to be sure our children understand before moving forward. I suppose that most of the understandings talked about in this article were things I thought were common sense. It's hard for me to think like a child but this article certainly helped me realize it will be necessary in order to help my students. We assume that our students will come to us with the natural talent and ability to so what we need them to do. This article raises the point that we might need to help our students if they have not yet reached this level. In the article, the author writes, "Given meaningful counting experiences, children will develop a strong sense of number and number relationships as they simultaneously develop facility with counting." I find myself wondering though if this is enough, and if not, what are some techniques to help our student's understanding?
When reading "Building a Systems of Tens" book, I realized that this book was more about specific examples rather than “in your face” type of information. I didn’t quite know how to process this type of approach to learning. I found myself questioning more, but not necessarily finding the answers. I did not like how the teacher writing even asked questions. I suppose this shows us how we will question what we do and must think about our teaching as it is happening. Despite my critiques, I found each case to be uniquely interesting. One in particular caught my attention because the word “carrying” came up. After our conversation in class a couple weeks ago, I have been paying more attention to math terms used. I do agree that rebundling and bundling. In the case described, the students Carmen and Melissa do not seem to be bothered by the term but I do wonder whether it would have made a difference if it had been explained otherwise.
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Erin,
ReplyDeleteI focused on many of the same things when reading the article "What You Need to Know About Beginning Number Concepts" I found this article to be so interesting and useful! I was just wondering if you could think of a time that you have ever seen some of these common misconceptions or errors in place? I could think of a few different times that I observed children completing mathematical tasks and was unsure of why they made the error or decision that they had. After reading through the different errors present in this article, I was able to re-think the situation and determine why these errors were made. Also, I was not clear what you were saying at the end of your post with regards to the terms bundling and rebundling. Are you saying that you agree with those terms or disagree? Do you think that borrowing and carrying is more appropriate wording despite what we are being taught in class? What terms do you think would be most effective and assist students in accurately computing equations?