Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Module 4 Reflection



How can the creation of a student sample help me clarify my unit expectations and improve my instructional design?

Creating a student sample will help me clarify my unit expectations by giving me a chance to see if my plan works. By working through the activities I want my students to do, I will be able to determine their effectiveness in addressing the objectives and standards I wish to teach. It will allow me to test each step of the project to ensure everything has been covered. I will also be able to see what doesn’t work so that I can make changes to my instructional design if necessary. I can make sure it all fits together logically to present the standards in the best order to maximize my students’ learning potential. As I worked through the exercises to plan my student sample, I found myself completely revising the standards I want to address. The ones I have now chosen fit much better into the unit plan I am developing. I believe this will make my unit plan a more effective teaching tool.

As I read the information in Module 4, it reaffirmed that I am on the right track. All along, I have wanted to show students that math is useful and fun outside the classroom, and the discussion of real world scenarios helped me bring that into focus. I now have some concrete ideas that I think will make my project even more applicable to the real world. I want to equip my students with the skills they will need in the real world in today’s society, such as critical thinking and problem solving, and communication and collaboration. My essential question ties right into all of this. It is, “How can math help us have fun in the real world?” I am confident that my students will have a new appreciation of math and how they can use it to make life easier so they can enjoy life to the fullest.

How can I ensure students will achieve the learning objectives when creating their student projects?

Since my project has elements outside of the standards I wish to teach, I will need to be careful to design activities that include all of the objectives. Since this is a project for a math class, I will need to ensure that the students have ample time to practice equations. As they blog about their experiences during the project they will be required to show examples of the equations they use while planning their budget. I will also give them random problems to solve on exit slips to be certain they understand the material. While my student sample will focus on the blog, the students’ final presentation will include charts and budget worksheets that they will work on throughout the project.

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