Download 10 Effective Approaches for Teaching Math: Instructional Strategies for Variation - Prof. and more Assignments History of Education in PDF only on Docsity! Lindsey Bakewell EDU 654 McCoy Assignment 4 10 Instructional Strategies for Variation in Teaching: 1. Group Work: Group work is an excellent way for students to interact with their peers and communicate about mathematics. Groups can be organized heterogeneously or homogeneously according to ability level. They can be in pairs or in groups of three or four. Example: Group work can be a simple activity such as homework check at the beginning of class, or it can be where students are given assigned roles in completing a specific task. In my lesson plan for group work, students worked in groups of four, but each student had to look at a specific scenario and decide what type of graph to model the data. The groups then discussed each individual scenario and discussed if the student’s choice was appropriate. 2. Manipulatives: Manipulatives are resources for relating concrete ideas to abstract concepts. Example: Algeblocks are a commonly used manipulative for introductory lessons in grouping and factoring. Other manipulatives include: colored chips for representing positive and negative integers and geoboards for modeling geometric figures and finding area or perimeter. 3. Technology: Technology in the classroom is important for making education applicable and relevant to the 21st Century. In math, technology can be a tool in the problem solving process, or it can be means for representing information. Example: Microsoft Excel is a program that can be used to construct spreadsheets and create graphs to model data. An activity incorporating this technology is having students find information on the Internet about the number of medals (gold, silver, bronze) that countries received in the 2008 Olympics and then creating spreadsheets and graphs with the data. 4. Real-World Application: Technology lends itself to this next instructional strategy of creating a context for learning with authentic activities. If students find that the topic relates to real-life, they may be more likely to “buy in” to the value of learning it. They more be more motivated and interested in the material. Example: Students could create a budget based on a particular salary. This activity would help students develop financial awareness and skills in money management. 5. Inquiry/Discovery Learning Opportunities: An important strategy for variety is shifting classroom instruction for being teacher-centered to being student-centered. Discovery learning allows the student to direct his or her learning. Example: In a geometry class, suppose students are studying the theorem that states: The sum of the lengths of the two smallest sides must be greater than the length of the third side. Students could use straws or hard spaghetti to explore what the requirements are for the sides of a triangle. Rather than revealing the theorem at the beginning of the lesson, students have the experience of discovering for themselves that there is a
