Ms. Tsitsopoulos's Math Blog

 Hello and welcome to blog post #4!                Today in our class we had a presentation for college preparation courses. I will reflect on one of the activities that really stood out for me for the course MBF3C: the Data Management strand. The activity was an escape room! It has been one of the most exciting activities I have ever done in my educational career thus far! The presentation was for a college preparation course, however, the escape box/room could be altered to any mathematics course and even could be used in other courses such as science, history or English! Once we walked into the classroom, the room was set up with problems on the whiteboards, keys stuck to the walls and a line of these escape boxes with multiple locks (shown below).  An escape room, also known as an "escape game", is a physical adventure game in which players solve a series of puzzles and riddles using clues, hints, and strategy to complete...

Hello everyone and welcome back to my third blog for this semester! For the last two classes, we had two more leading learning activity presentations, where my colleagues both did a presentation on resources for grade 11 and 12 university mathematics, including both functions strands, data management and calculus and vectors. It was interesting to see how to take a university preparation course and find different ways to make math engaging! We have only had leading learning activity presentations on both academic and applied grade 9/10 mathematics. Therefore, it was a good learning experience to expand my tool box with ways to integrate both motivating and engaging activities and include technology to learn mathematical concepts in all strands of grade 11 and 12 mathematics.  The first presentation day included two different activities that covered grade 11 and 12 university preparation functions. The first activity was for MHF4U, grade 12 advanced functions jeopardy....

Hello everyone,              This week I would like to reflect on two activities that were presented in class today for grade 9 and 10 applied mathematics. The first activity was for grade 9 applied math and our class got to learn all about spiral curriculum using a relay race which was extremely engaging and fun for the whole class to participate in and compete. The second activity was also for grade 9 applied and was an online website called Pixton.               The first activity deepened my understanding of the spiral curriculum and we had the chance to discuss pros and cons of this way of teaching mathematics. I also was able to compare this particular activity to a similar relay race activity I used in my practicum which also used the idea of spiraling, however, the curriculum in my classroom was still taught unit by unit. This activity motivated the peers in my class ...

Block One Reflection Hello and welcome back to my Blog for 2019! I haven't blogged for awhile as I was a student teacher for the first time. My first teaching practicum as a Teacher Candidate was an outstanding experience filled with a tremendous amount of learning and professional growth. At the beginning of placement I had the choice to either teach Grade 12 or 11 university functions or grade 9 applied math, I chose the grade 9 class. At first I was extremely intimidated to teach an applied mathematics class, however, I am glad that I had the opportunity to challenge myself. Applied classes are stereotyped to as a “nightmare” to teach, but I had the chance to test a variety of classroom management techniques and was exposed to learning styles and teaching methods that are different then the way I learned growing up in an academic classroom setting. Additionally, I was able to build a positive and professional relationship with students, my associate teacher and oth...

Hello Everyone and welcome to my final blog of this semester.                 In todays class we learned the last strategy to use in our classrooms. As a recap, we have used a Gallery Walk and a Math Congress which were mentioned in my previous blogs. The focus of this blog is going to be unfolding the strategy called “Japanese Bansho.” Eloise et al., (2018) describe this method as an organizational strategy to facilitate multiple problem representations and better classroom communication. The term Bansho refers to the intentional use of board space for facilitating student learning, and everything written on the board is meaningful and significant (Eloise et al., 2018). Once the students have shared their ideas on the board you then can sort and classify the solutions according to similar methods used and in order of complexity.   This method is used for feedback to the students as there is no ...

Hello, and welcome to Blog Post #4!                In class today we used a strategy for problem solving called the Math Congress . A math congress “is a pedagogical approach in which students present their solutions from their mathematical work completed individually, in pairs, or in small groups, and share and defend their mathematical thinking” (Kotsopoulos & Lee, 2012, p. 1). Once the activity is finished, the students put up their work around the classroom and discussion takes place afterward on the students work. According to Kotsopoulos & Lee (2012), the Math Congress has four key roles in the classroom: To highlight and record key mathematical concepts, to indicate connections between various mathematical strategies, to assist in conceptual development, and to scaffold learning by drawing attention to the efficiency of particular strategies mentioned in the classroom. This strategy can be ex...

Colourbox. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.colourbox.com/image/problem-solving-word-cloud-concept-9-image- Hey everyone! Welcome to Blog Post #3           In today’s class we unfolded many important concepts around problem solving strategies and mathematical processes such as communicating, selecting tools and computational strategies. The challenging part of today’s class was being able to go from a student’s perspective and move to a teacher’s perspective and figure out how to unpack different ways to teach math. One part that really struck me was the endless amounts of examples of mathematical problems teachers have to solve. For example, I find it hard in our classes to make lesson plans for math classes without being in practice. I struggle a lot with differentiated learning ideas without knowing the students personally. Therefore, once I get into practice I will be able to relate to all of these problems on a greater level. Teaching math in its...