Weekly Report & Reflection #7:

Weekly Report:

Unfortunately during this week I was absent, due to a stomach flu.

Reflection:

         The chapter reading was on Patterning and Algebra. This chapter was mainly about patterns representing different regularities, always revealing an element of repetition. The main idea I got was patterns representing the same item over and over again, being represented in many different ways. Some ways of representing data in different ways can be represented by algebra, explaining the relationships by analyzing the change. I also learned that variables are an efficient way of representing relationships between quantities.

         What I found interesting was the many different ways a pattern can be represented; through shapes, numbers, sizes, letters, colours, literally anything can be represented by a pattern. The part that I did not understand was the section on diagonal patterns. This section within in the textbook,

(Heartwell, 2015)

(Small, Marion, pg 612), in particular I did not understand. After reading the context of the problem, I then understand the pattern, and could continue it. The big idea with this section was using appropriate manipulative's in order to represent a pattern. Being able to represent a pattern with both the manipulative's and numbers is the gold standard when trying to explain patterns to students. Some interesting manipulative's I learned about within this chapter include; counters, attribute blocks, pattern blocks, geometric shapes, linking cubes, and toothpicks. The most effective manipulative I found was the toothpicks, because I can foresee myself using this example within my upcoming placement, as a tool to explain growth patterns and counting the sides on shapes.

       This example in particular is extremely effective because I can show the pattern of number of sides, having the students physically being able to deconstruct the shapes and recognize how many sides there are. The students can group these manipulative's specifically and show the growth pattern as well. I feel like relationships and functions will be one of the hardest parts to explain to the students, being able to extract my previous knowledge and present it in a way the students can understand and construct their own ideas and strategies from.

     An effective website I found while researching how to teach algebra was; this video. It goes over the many different steps needed to understand algebra efficiently. I especially liked this video because it went over a lot of different learning strategies, simplifying each step.