Learning Activities: Week 3

Different students learn in different ways.  Some students learn best through writing out notes; others learn best through getting up on their feet; some learn best through using tactile objects; other students learn best through simply listening.  There are so many different types of learners that need to be accommodated for in the classroom.  This is why it is important to provide a large variety of instructional activities that are beneficial to many different types of learners.  The learning activities done this week in my course on Teaching Mathematics at the Intermediate/Senior Level were great examples of how to incorporate different types of learning into an instructional activity.

Introduction to Rates of Change Activity

One of the activities this week focused on the math concept rates of change.  Each group of students received a CBR (calculator-based ranger) which can be used to collect data on motion (including distance and speed).  For the first part of the activity, students were given six different distance-time graphs.  The groups had to try to create each graph using the CBR.  Then students were given blank graphs with specific descriptions (example: “walking away from an object slowly”), and students were required to draw what the line would look like.  After this group activity, the class came back together as a whole to do some specific examples on calculating the rate of change of a line.

https://dm066.k12.sd.us/83_act01.htm

I really enjoyed this activity and would definitely use it in my future classroom.  When learning rate of change, distance-time graphs are often used.  In addition, these graphs are often related to real world scenarios (example: “describe a scenario that would produce this distance-time graph”).  However, students rarely get to create distance-time graphs themselves.  What I like about this activity is that students are actually able to get up on their feet and explore with and create distance-time graphs.  By bringing CBRs into the classroom for an activity like this, students get to see their own ideas play out in real life.  It also allows students to discover their own learning.  For example, a student may have thought the graph of someone walking slowly towards the sensor would look one way; however, after testing it using the CBR, perhaps the student discovers that he/she forgot that the slope should be negative.  This activity is a good example of tailoring to different styles of learning.  Clearly from what I previously mentioned, this activity is excellent for kinesthetic/tactile learners.  It can also help students visualize the different types of lines created when comparing distance and time.  I also believe that it is good for students who learn best through discovery.  Students are able to make mistakes and try again.  This activity helps visual learners because students will likely think of this activity when trying to solve future problems.  In addition, I believe it was very beneficial that this activity started with the more application based part of the lesson and then went into the next more mathematical part (i.e. mathematically calculating the slope of a line).  I believe that this made the activity much more engaging.  I look forward to hopefully trying this activity with my future math class.

http://www.calculadoras.com.mx/index.php
?route=product/product&product_id=110

http://www.vernier.com/products/sensors
/motion-detectors/cbr2/

If I were to use this activity, I would likely also add a part of the activity where students can create their own distance-time graphs.  For example, students could draw a random graph, predict how they will need to move in order to create that graph, and then test it out using the CBR.