Final Posting for Blog Project

Our first projects are due tonight at midnight. I thought it would be appropriate to sum up what I've gotten from our class so far. I must admit I am not that computer savvy and really was quite intimidated by the whole idea of having my own blog, but I have become comfortable with it. I'm grateful that I was forced to do one; it has helped me learn quite a lot more about technology. Whether anyone has any interest in my blog remains to be seen, but I hope that anyone who has looked at it has been able to find something useful. I know I have gained a lot of useful knowledge from the process.
So here's a re-cap of my frist two weeks of class and what I've learned...
In chapter one we concentrated on problem solving, this has always been my weak point, but I'm improving. We learned Polya's Problem Solving Strategy. There are four parts to his strategy:
1. Understand the problem. (play aroung with it.)
2. Devise a plan. ( Make a drawing, a table, a model, guess and check, or maybe work backwards. There are a lot of different ways to approach this. It all depends on what you are most comfortable with and how you learn.)
3. Carry out your plan.
4. Look back over the problem and your answer. (Is your answer reasonable?)
We also covered using patterns for problem solving and solving problems using algebra. I realize now that I have been using algebra for many years and it is not as horrific as I have made it out to be.
In chapter two we worked on Venn diagrams. These can be very complex. We created our own and voted on the best. Unfortunately, I am not very witty and mine wasn't worth any extra credit , we had some very clever people in our class. I really liked the Michigan weather/MCC parking situation diagram. When dicussing Venn diagrams we learned about set, elements, sub-sets,compliments and relations.
- The set is a group of something.
- An element is an individual piece of a set.
- A sub-set is a related group within a set.
- The compliment is any outside of a set.
- A relation is 2 sets with some sort of correspondence.
Functions and deductive reasoning are also covered in chapter 3. A function is a relation where each element of the first set corresponds to exactly one element of the second set. I was able to put this new knowledge to good use. My oldest son is currently taking Algebra 2 in high school. He is just now learning about functions and I was able to explain them a little differently from what he learned in class. It was helpful to us both.
I really enjoyed the logic and reasoning part of this chapter, I love the puzzles and I hope that when I teach I will be able to introduce lots of fun ways for kids to learn math. I think it's important for it to be fun to learn. Maybe math won't get such a bad rap.
Click here for some fun ideas.