The String Task: Not Just for High School
This article talks about functional thinking or relationships amongst numbers. An experiment was conducted in classrooms grades 3-5 to promote algebra early on in school. The types of problems in this article that were used to teach functional thinking, lent themselves well to working with standard 3. The first problem had to do with cutting a piece of string a number of times. Students had to figure out the relationship between the number of cuts and the number of strings. "Students were encouraged to discuss their mathematical thinking and to use multiple representations to communicate their ideas with their peers… [and] to explain their thinking" (Isler, 285). Students had ample opportunity to talk with other student or the teacher. They came up with a relationship between the two numbers in partners, represented their data with charts and pictures, and explained their reasoning. This worked the same way for the Brady problem. Except this problem was square tables and how many people could sit at each.
Isler, I., Marum, T., Stephens, A., Blanton, M., Knuth, E., & Gardiner, A.M. (2014). The string task: Not just for high school. Teaching Children Mathematics, 21(5), 282-292. Retrieved from http://www.nctm.org/Publications/teaching-children-mathematics/2014/Vol21/Issue5/The-String-Task-Not-Just-for-High-School/
Use Appropriate Tools Strategically (5)
Mapping the Way to Content Knowledge
This article talks about using a content map in order to better understand how to teach subtraction as a preservice teacher. This is an example of how the teacher and the student can benefit from a tool. There are various other examples of tools being used throughout the article. A student is working to solve 70 - 23 and get an answer of 53 using the traditional method. When she repeats the problem again using base-10 block and a hundred chart she gets the problem correct. The particular example of the subtraction content map is something that I have benefited from as a preservice teacher and the other tools described in this article can be beneficial for future students.
Poling, L.L., Goodson-Epsy, T., Dean, C., Lynch-Davis, K., & Quickenton, A. (2015). Mapping the way to content knowledge. Teaching Children Mathematics, 21(9), 538-547. Retrieved from http://www.nctm.org/Publications/Teaching-Children-Mathematics/2015/Vol21/Issue9/Mapping-the-Way-to-Content-Knowledge/
Nice:) Thanks!
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