C4T #2

For the second C4T assignment I was given was David Wee's blog The Reflective Educator. He is a Formative Assessment Specialist for Mathematics at New Visions for Public Schools in NYC. In his blog, he discusses different aspects of life inside and outside of school that he has noticed mathematics can be used in. I am an English student and have had very little success in math. So unfortunately some of the blog posts he makes, mostly ones dealing with equations, were hard for me to understand.

In his most recent blog post, however, he discusses assessments that may eventually be used in New York City. What I found interesting in this is that he mentions an idea that seems almost project base learning, saying "What I think is missing is an opportunity for students to demonstrate the complete range of what it means to do mathematics, including asking questions themselves that they answer,[..]." He does state that it is still better then most assessments that he has dealt with before, and hopes that he would be able to use something similar in the future.

An earlier post was a way of teaching fractions that, even to me, made perfect sense. He says that he noticed that a lot of students he was tutoring were having problems with fractions, so he came up with a way of teaching them. That way was using a visual representation, via boxes on a chart, to describe how to add or subtract fractions. Instead of just teaching them formulas or the rules, he shows them a visual and physical representation of what is going on. That is a hands on way of learning that I think many students would benefit greatly from.

In conclusion, I will keep coming back to Mr. Wee's blog, even though I am out of my league when it comes to mathematics. Perhaps, in some weird way, I may learn something new myself.