The Limit Does Not Exist- EDBE 8P29: Reflection and Report 5

Hello everyone,
Welcome back to my math blog! This week I will explore growth mindset through Makerspace, my conceptual understanding of data management and probability and the activity 'Fooling the Fairground".

Growth Mindset Through Makerspace

During our class this week, I was able to experience a Makerspace workshop. Makerspace provides hands-on access to emerging technologies and provides a collaborative learning space for everyone to experiment, learn and invent. The three stations my group visited were wood- working, robots and the 3D pen. At these stations, there was little to no instruction provided. This allowed me to be creative and explore on my own while connecting my knowledge to the Ontario Curriculum Mathematics expectations. This week I learned that Makerspace provides a growth mindset and this is useful to me as a student, and future educator. We were given challenging tasks that we could explore ourselves. These tasks involved metacognition which created a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. It also provided a growth mindset by allowing us to demonstrate effort in each of the stations. This can lead me to a path of mastery when exploring mathematical concepts.

A question I still have is: How can I create a Makerspace in my future classroom if I have limited resources or funding?

Conceptual Understanding of Data Management and Probability

I will ensure that my future students develop a conceptual understanding of data management and probability by introducing the topic in a fun and engaging manner. I feel I have made the biggest improvement in this area by exploring ways in which I can teach math that will ensure my future students have a conceptual understanding. For example, Small (2013) explains that during a data management lesson, students collect data, on a topic of their choice, and then create a pictograph or bar graph to display their data. Also, students can graph their findings using technology which is an interactive way to explore data. Small (2013) also explores how students can use manipulatives to learn about probability. For example, students can use a deck of cards and then record the probability of drawing 1 heart and the probability of drawing two hearts in a row.

Fooling the Fairground

During week 10 in class, we did an activity called Fooling the Fairground. The game was introduced in a creative way. It explained that there was a fair in town which included hundreds of exciting rides, stalls and performers and it was coming to Brock for one weekend. The owner of the fairground is named Barry and he wants to design some fairground games that will convince his customers to spend money and he needs our help. This was my favourite part of the week because this introduction made me interested and actually want to participate. I started to create my own “tricky spinner”. It took me a while to decide what I wanted to put in each of the sections of my spinner and how large to make each section. But after trial and error, I finally created my tricky spinner. Overall, I enjoyed this activity because I learned about math concepts while being inventive.