My name is Dan Frezell and I recently returned from a trip to Alberta, Canada where I was exposed to some amazing pedagogical practices that I hope to bring home to Tecumseh, Ontario. Below I will discuss what I saw at a K-9 school in Edmonton, Alberta. The name of the school is Monsignor Fee Otterson School
What we saw-
We saw several strong practices that seemed to engage students in mathematics. Some of the practices that stood out to us were the following:
Mathematical games in order to explore, practice and strengthen understanding of key mathematical concepts.
Inquiry activities that encouraged students to create figures and use technology in order to explore the concepts behind calculating the area of multiple 3 dimensional shapes.
Makerspace- the concept behind makerspace is to create an area where students feel motivated and inspired to explore areas that involve the creation of items that help solve problems that arise in students’ lives.
What we want to incorporate-
We took away several key math resources for games from our visit. We gained the names of several sites that provide options for math games, We also witnessed different strategies that can be used to incorporate the math games as instructional methods and also formative measures.
The inquiry model is one we as a school hope to further explore as a school be providing more opportunities for students to complete activities that encourage them to participate actively as the learner. Developing learning opportunities that allow students to actively participate and shape the learning the process.
The makerspace ideas we have thus far include promoting the lego robotics equipment, different design challenges that promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and the purchase of some new tools that will allow us to explore coding and app creation with our students.
How we plan to incorporate-
To incorporate a greater amount of the games in the classroom we aspire to create a shared system where the teachers in our building can collaborate and use the games that we create, possibly with slight modifications based on grade level and student ability. We currently use electronic games in our school but can also try and incorporate more hands on activities as well.
In regards to inquiry based activities we hope to bring more of these activities to the classroom. I plan on developing activities that can be used by several grade levels and varying abilities. These activities will be brought to classrooms and possible follow-up activities will be discussed and provided.
The makerspace program will be something that we will bring to the classroom and allow students to explore for themselves. These students will then have the opportunity to follow up on these activities in more of a club type atmosphere where they will be provided with more instruction and greater opportunity to delve deeper.
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