Switzer, M. J. (2010) Mathematics teaching in the middle school. Bridging the Math Gap, 15 (7), 400-407.
This paper discussed how to be effective in teaching students after they transitioned from elementry school to middle school or middle school to high school. Some ideas the paper presented in order for teachers to be more effective in teaching during the transitory stages of a student's career were knowing different ways to do the same concept and also being able to relate new and old concepts. It is important for teachers to know different ways to do the same concept because students come from previous teachers and schools where many different methods are used to find the same solution, when the different methods are understood, more students can be helped. By relating old and new concepts students get a better understanding of the new concept because they are somewhat familiar with the old. An example the article gave was using tiles to solve multiplication problems and also to solve equations.
I agree with the article, I think it is very important to be aware of the difficulties of transfering to the next level of schooling. This article was effective in allowing teachers to realize what might cause problems for new students and provided ways to avoid these problems. I did wish however, that the article provided more examples of possible problems and solutions. For example if students came from different previous schools, where some had a stronger background on a subject then others, how would a teacher be able to handle the differences in the class?
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Overall I thought this blog was good. I thought that you did a good job of maintaining a professional tone. You stayed on topic, and you didn't have trouble keeping your own opinions to the second paragraph. However, one thing that I would like to know about are other things that he suggests to help students transition. It seemed like only one idea is given to the main point of the article, I think you could expand your explanation of how to help kids transition (from the topic sentence it seems that this is the main point of the aritcle). Good job.
ReplyDeleteI definitely feel that you kept a professional tone, and that you kept to the topic of the article. I do feel that a wider range of more concise examples would have drawn me into the paper a bit more. It also feels that the topic sentence didn't quite reflect everything that was talked about in body of the paragraph. I still did like the ideas you presented though.
ReplyDeleteI thought that you gave a good summary of what the journal was on, though (and I don't know if this was even in the paper) I couldn't help but ask "how". The idea that students need help transitioning from schools and teachers is all well and good, but I want to know how the author proposes we do that.
ReplyDeleteYour writing of the blog was great though, it was detailed and inclusive but I didn't feel it was wordy or boring.
Thanks for the great blog.
You had a good tone throughout your entry.
ReplyDeleteYou had a great topic sentence for your last paragraph, but I didn't feel that it had the support it needed.
Your tone throughout the blog was very professional. I had a little bit of trouble finding the main idea. It was kind of stated in the topic sentence, but the rest of that paragraph seemed to drift to the specific example of connecting concepts. The only thing I would suggest is a stronger topic sentence that really pulls the whole article together.
ReplyDeleteHaley
I think your main idea was very clear. I found it really interesting too! i think this is important for us as teachers to be aware of these transitions and try and help out.
ReplyDelete