EMAT 3500 Journal Entries

 

Week One

Use reflective problem #6 in Chapter One of the Cooney text as a prompt

Click here to see what your classmates thought...

Week Two

Reflect on the role, purpose, nature, etc. of technology in the secondary mathematics classroom.

Week Three

1. List 5 adjectives that you associate with mathematics. Then, one at a time, describe in a couple of sentences what is gained or lost in mathematics by having eliminated the missing adjective.

2. Consider the following people:

For each person, select the adjectives in your list (1) that you think that person might use to describe mathematics.

3. Consider your best high school mathematics teacher, your worst high school mathematics teacher, and an "average" high school student. From your list in (1), select adjectives you think each would choose and give reasons why an adjective would be chosen or not chosen.

Week Four

Write a 1-2 page letter to a high school algebra student in which you explain the concpet of function.

Week Five

Let's go back to the five adjectives... This time list 5 adjectives that you associate with good mathematics teaching. Then, one at a time, describe in a couple of sentences why you feel that this adjective describes good mathematics teaching. Do feel that you are particulary stong or weak in any of these areas (adjectives).

Week Six

Use any or all of #20 on p. 253 in the Cooney book as a prompt for this week's journal entry.

 

Week Seven

Using the criteria stated in class and below, write a reaction/reflection on one of the presentations you attended at the GCTM conference.

Description (3 points): A brief description of the presentation.
Critique (4 points): Strengths and weaknesses.
Reflection (3 points): Suggestions for improvements.

 

Week Eight

Use the NCTM's president's message (handed out in class) as a prompt for this week's journal entry.

 

Week Nine

Let's say that you are teaching 10th grade Algebra One to a group a students who took Algebra One in the ninth grade and failed it - for a variety of reasons: absences ( illnesses and suspensions), refusal to do homework, didn't ever learn how to operate with integers, failed every test, etc...

You are beginning a unit on Linear Functions with your students next week and you are brainstorming about how that first day of the unit should go. Write about some ideas you have... talk to me about why these ideas might (or might not) be effective. This is the fisrt stage of any lesson planning.

 

Week Ten

Imagine that you will be teaching EMAT 3500 next year. What would your course look like? How would it be similar to and different from the EMAT 3500 experience you just had? What things would you emphasize/de-emphasize? include/not include? This is your chance to vent, offer suggestions, point out assignments or readings that were helpful to you, say something nice, etc... Your feedback is very valuable to me and to this department!!