Hi Chernie! Your unit plan is fairly good, and brings together the elements I requested -- but I think it needs some substantial rethinking if it is to work well in an actual Grade 9 class!
You have written a good rationale and a reasonable assessment plan, and have included a project, some elements of math and the arts and a good timeline of lessons. That part is well done!
But I have two main areas of concern with the unit plan/ lesson plans overall:
1) I don't think you have chosen very good resources to use, and 2) I think you have underestimated Grade 9 students' abilities to learn quickly, and have offered them too little to work on that would be challenging and of interest. Both of these issues could contribute to losing students' attention very fast, if they become bored or frustrated, or feel that there is not enough to challenge and engage them!
In terms of (1), the two short videos you have included in two of your lesson plans are NOT good ones! They skip over the topics at hand in an alarmingly superficial way; they deal in cultural stereotypes; and among the few 'facts' they do include, they have a lot of factual errors! For example, in the first film, they show roller coasters and business growth charts that do NOT contain quadratic function graphs. In the second film, they identify Euler as Italian (he was Swiss German) and call Al-Khwarizmi 'Arab' (he was Persian), and they show a supposedly Chinese abacus that is actually a modern kindergarten counting toy. If you are going to show videos in class, they must be high quality videos that include accurate and thought-provoking information -- and then you need to design learning activities that connect with these good videos so that they don't just go by in an instant without the students ever making sense of them!
In terms of (2), you have allocated a whole 80 minute class to students researching and presenting the history of polynomials (a great topic) -- but I am concerned that they will simply be 'copying from the encyclopedia/ Wikipedia' very quickly, with no real understanding of what they are reporting on or reading. It is your duty as the teacher to design ways to have students actually engage with the mathematics in meaningful and challenging ways!
Similarly, you have allocated a lot of time and a whole project to adding polynomials geometrically... but is this something challenging enough to take that much time?
And in your earlier lesson plan, you have the question of a farmer changing their field from a rectangle to a square as a connection with real life. Now I like this story problem as an imaginative puzzle (for completing the square), but I cannot imagine a real-life situation where a farmer's rectangular land would suddenly turn into a square piece of land! So I would NOT characterize this as a connection with real life. Any students who have any connection with the land would immediately be turned off by this kind of statement.
So overall, I suggest that you take your good ideas and think much more deeply about (1) which resources will be truly helpful and reliable factual in supporting kids to learn about math history and connections, and how to work with the material they raise. (Check out some of the resources listed on the sidebar in our class blog for a few possible sources!) (2) Think about what Grade 9 students are capable of, and what will offer enough (but not too much) challenge, to have them DO meaningful mathematical thinking, inquiry, computation, logic, geometry, etc. Plan for ways to increase the challenge level for those who finish quickly, and to offer hints, skills and supports for those who find the challenge too much. You need to focus on maximizing learning for each lesson, not just filling the time with activities. This gets easier as you get more experience, and it is a very important part of building your skills as a teacher!
Hi Chernie! Your unit plan is fairly good, and brings together the elements I requested -- but I think it needs some substantial rethinking if it is to work well in an actual Grade 9 class!
ReplyDeleteYou have written a good rationale and a reasonable assessment plan, and have included a project, some elements of math and the arts and a good timeline of lessons. That part is well done!
But I have two main areas of concern with the unit plan/ lesson plans overall:
1) I don't think you have chosen very good resources to use, and
2) I think you have underestimated Grade 9 students' abilities to learn quickly, and have offered them too little to work on that would be challenging and of interest.
Both of these issues could contribute to losing students' attention very fast, if they become bored or frustrated, or feel that there is not enough to challenge and engage them!
In terms of (1), the two short videos you have included in two of your lesson plans are NOT good ones! They skip over the topics at hand in an alarmingly superficial way; they deal in cultural stereotypes; and among the few 'facts' they do include, they have a lot of factual errors! For example, in the first film, they show roller coasters and business growth charts that do NOT contain quadratic function graphs. In the second film, they identify Euler as Italian (he was Swiss German) and call Al-Khwarizmi 'Arab' (he was Persian), and they show a supposedly Chinese abacus that is actually a modern kindergarten counting toy. If you are going to show videos in class, they must be high quality videos that include accurate and thought-provoking information -- and then you need to design learning activities that connect with these good videos so that they don't just go by in an instant without the students ever making sense of them!
In terms of (2), you have allocated a whole 80 minute class to students researching and presenting the history of polynomials (a great topic) -- but I am concerned that they will simply be 'copying from the encyclopedia/ Wikipedia' very quickly, with no real understanding of what they are reporting on or reading. It is your duty as the teacher to design ways to have students actually engage with the mathematics in meaningful and challenging ways!
Similarly, you have allocated a lot of time and a whole project to adding polynomials geometrically... but is this something challenging enough to take that much time?
And in your earlier lesson plan, you have the question of a farmer changing their field from a rectangle to a square as a connection with real life. Now I like this story problem as an imaginative puzzle (for completing the square), but I cannot imagine a real-life situation where a farmer's rectangular land would suddenly turn into a square piece of land! So I would NOT characterize this as a connection with real life. Any students who have any connection with the land would immediately be turned off by this kind of statement.
So overall, I suggest that you take your good ideas and think much more deeply about (1) which resources will be truly helpful and reliable factual in supporting kids to learn about math history and connections, and how to work with the material they raise. (Check out some of the resources listed on the sidebar in our class blog for a few possible sources!)
(2) Think about what Grade 9 students are capable of, and what will offer enough (but not too much) challenge, to have them DO meaningful mathematical thinking, inquiry, computation, logic, geometry, etc. Plan for ways to increase the challenge level for those who finish quickly, and to offer hints, skills and supports for those who find the challenge too much. You need to focus on maximizing learning for each lesson, not just filling the time with activities. This gets easier as you get more experience, and it is a very important part of building your skills as a teacher!
Oops, I just saw the worksheet for the vegetable garden. Very nice!
ReplyDelete