Teaching Spatial Reasoning

Ofsted’s 2012 report ‘Made to Measure’ states that even though manipulatives are being utilized in schools, they aren’t being used as effectively as they should be in order to support the teaching and learning of mathematical concepts. Black, J (2013) suggests this is because manipulatives are being applied to certain concepts of mathematics which teachers believe best aid in the understanding of a concept. Therefore, students may not be able to make sense of the manipulatives according to their own understanding of the relation between the manipulative and concept. Whilst both Black, J (2013) and Drews, D (2007) support the contention that student’s need to understand the connections between the practical apparatus and the concept, Drews,

Spaces must tolerate movement and noise generated by the child. Children, like adults, are influenced in how they feel and behave by the total environment and the physical setting in particular. Adults notice order and cleanliness; children notice small spaces to crawl into or materials to make something out of. A large open area may be an invitation to run if it is of the right scale and proportion; but it also can create sense of fear and loneliness if the proportions are beyond in relation to children.

Teaching the lesson on characters viewpoint, I used the bottom-top approach to help students understand what they were looking for when describing the viewpoint of a character. When starting the lesson, I had the student explain to me what is a character and how can the reader know who is the main character. Once students were able to define a character, we changed the discussion to thinking of how every character is different. Students were able to successfully describe to why characters in a story each character is acts or thinks different. The next step was going over how to describe students viewpoints by focusing on the characters actions, how they feel, and what they see through the story. When reading the book, I insured to make pauses

Should we teach the flat-earth theory in public high schools? Of course not, right? But shouldn’t schools give students both sides of this debate and teach the controversy? Well no, because there is no controversy, except in the heads of the flat-earthers. A similar feud is currently going on over whether intelligent design, another psuedoscientific “theory” should be taught in public school. Shockingly, the nonsensical argument laid out above seems to be the strongest case the intelligent design crowd seems to have in favor of their position.

In deciding, if social approach is the process of how one learns, I must first ask how learning is broken down. In the Yilmaz article they discussed that learning is broken into 3 categories Behaviorism ,Cognitivism, and Constructivism. They discovered that behaviorist focused more on teacher-centered instruction, while Cognitive and constructivism focuses more on the individual. Since cognitive and constructivism focuses on how a person acquires/stores knowledge this lead educators to shift their approach. I agree that to understand how a person learns, more attention must be focused on the individual. As a product of American school system, I noticed that our education system lumps students into groups even if we have different learning styles.

As adults we use shapes every day, although we may not realise it. Think about when we are arranging furniture, cleaning out the cupboard or fridge, this is all done by arranging according to the shapes that are in them; road signs and markings make extensive use of different shapes, helping us to identify them before we can actually read them. When a child explores different shapes, they are using basic educational development; the observation of same and different. This concept provides them with a basic process that they will be able to use in observing, comparing and discussing all that is seen and encountered. This resource will aid students in year one develop the skills to differentiate various shapes by recognizing their key features.

In the selected journal article “Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say!” the author, Steven C. Reinhardt summarizes and promotes encouragement on his position with questions about teaching styles, teachers who use the direct-instruction, and the teacher-centered model that is used too often. Reinhart also discusses how this instruction does not fit well with the in-depth tasks and problems that he was using. He gathered information that he thought could change the way math is taught to students and that explaining mathematic strategies to students should be an engaging and comfortable environment. Research was done by Reinhart to move from the traditional way of instruction and use a more student-centered, problem-based approach to help students gain a better understanding through him by being the listener and the students the explainers, if they are to ever really learn mathematic skills and standards correctly. This would include the implementation of using strategies such as, creating better plans, sharing with the students the reasons for asking questions, teaching for better

Cognitive development is the process that leads to the emergence of the ability to think and understand (Siegler, DeLoache, Eisenberg, & Saffran, 2014). This process involves the “development of thinking and reasoning” (Siegler et al., 2014, p.15) throughout childhood, including the growth of capabilities such as “perception, attention, language, problem solving, reasoning, memory, conceptual understanding, and intelligence” (Siegler et al., 2014, p. 131). Children contribute to their development through self-initiated activity even before they are born, by practicing breathing and digestive processes and exercising

Introduction It is a known truth that maths education is important. It is one of the few developed countries that has no compulsory mathematics in upper secondary education (Hogden et Al, 2010). Throughout the world maths is respected.The content changes from country to country but ultimately most countries cover broadly the

Manipulative tools, in the setting of education, are physical tools of teaching, engaging students visually and physically (benefit of using). A simple benefit of manipulative tools is that they can be simple objects such as coins, blocks, puzzles, markers, etc. The uses of manipulative tools are a positive tool because they actively engage the students with ID in discovery during while participating in the learning lesson. A teacher provides the lesson material along with a basic direction, while students are allowed to explore the materials and ask questions before and during the lesson. Additional benefits of using manipulative tools include that the are multi-sensory, they represent ideas in more than one way, they promote communication among students, and they increase confidence, leading to diminished confusion and comprehensive understanding. All of these benefits lead to an increase in student outcomes. (Firestone, n.d.). According to a review of studies by the National Center for Accessing the General Curriculum, certain groups of students, including special needs students and students with limited English skills, benefit from using manipulative tools

Children literature is important for youth to understand diversity and cultural differences. Diversity is often a difficult topic for young children to grasp due to most of the time when they are younger only being around people that look like them. Frazier says diversity in literature exposed kids to different types of people in a safe place where they can ask questions and learns (Hawkins). Diversity in children's literature can introduce young children to cultural differences and even similarities. Grasping these concepts at a young age can give children to look around and notice their surroundings and the people and things around them. Children noticing their surroundings helps them acknowledge the differences in the people that make up their everyday lives.

The late Professor Bruce Archer deduced that modelling was a significant area of general education. Archer interpreted that modelling was directly linked to Design; recognising that Design represented a third area in curriculum. This ideology is represented in Figure 2 3 below, which demonstrates that not only is modelling ‘the language of designing’, but that it is also related to the areas of Humanities and Science since language and notation are equally forms of modelling. Similarly, his definition is that “A model is anything which represents anything else for informational, experimental, evaluative or communication purposes.” (Archer et al 1992, p.7) Additional to drawings, he recognised how designers use physical models to represent

Children need a wealth of practical and creative experiences in solving mathematical problems. Mathematics education is aimed at children being able to make connections between mathematics and daily activities; it is about acquiring basic skills, whilst forming an understanding of mathematical language and applying that language to practical situations. Mathematics also enables students to search for simple connections, patterns, structures and rules whilst describing and investigating strategies. Geometry is important as Booker, Bond, Sparrow and Swan (2010, p. 394) foresee as it allows children the prospect to engage in geometry through enquiring and investigation whilst enhancing mathematical thinking, this thinking encourages students to form connections with other key areas associated with mathematics and builds upon students abilities helping students reflect

Learning is the continuum of two poles, which Piaget (18) and other child experts have pointed out, is often related to a transition from concrete to abstract thinking and proceeds through trial - and - error method, rather than through a child instantly knowing what is ‘right’. The child, who developmentally, has not learned how to look at a problem from various viewpoints, is unlikely to have ready useful referents internalised in his mental schema to make him ready for instant ‘right’ comprehension; a comprehension based very often on teacher expectations,

This chapter presents the background and describes the overview of this study which aims to analyze the influence of mathematical ability on subject performance of accounting students in De La Salle Lipa.