Response to Readings

1. It differs in that it taking a problem-solving approach to solving math dives right in to showing kids how this math really applies to our life. I feel that this method doesn't make the student feel like they are actually doing math. For example, in my setting now, my resource class is doing an airplane project. They are working in groups to create an airplane maker company. They have to figure out the costs for different services they will offer and then later they have "clients" who want to buy a plane with different services. They have to use the costs they assigned and calculate the final price. In short, they are using variables and expressions in a real life way.

2. I'm afraid that my ideas on math will make me "skip right over" math in the classroom. For example, when I taught a 2nd grade GED class last fall, that was the only subject that I only taught 2 lessons in over the course of 4 months! Every other subject I had between 3 and 5!

3. It sounds like to me that this group of people may be "teaching to the test" instead of actually teaching their students. You have to think about what your goals are for the end of the year, where do you want your students to be at? Obviously you want them to do well on the TAKS/STAR but are you only going to focus on those criterions?

4. NO! You have to let go of the control and allow the student to do it themselves. It's like the saying, "If you give a man a fish he will be hungry tomorrow. But if you teach him how to fish, he can get his own food." I may have misquoted but in the end it tells us to teach them how to do it not do it for them.

5. "Students sometimes got different answers for the same problem. Instead of erasing an answer and changing it to the answer of a more capable student, the students justified their own answers. Through their conversations they made sense of the problems and found their own or others' errors." pg 271. Isn't that what we want our students to do anyway; figure out what makes an answer right or wrong?