Math can often be seen as being a little... staid. Very necessary, of course, but firmly grounded in the world of fact. It seems as if creativity and eccentricity has no place in a lesson plan for math. You can't get creative with facts like 2 + 2 = 4 or with feet and inches. Or can you?
One teacher, Ms Kay Toliver, who originally worked in Primary School 72 in East Harlem, New York, has managed to change all that, and her ideas are beginning to spread to other educators, and she has won a Presidential Award for her creative ideas. A math lesson plan, for Ms Toliver, is likely to include songs, costume and drama - and her pupils absolutely love it. "I just try to figure out how I can make this information interesting enough," she says, explaining why she has a tendency to sing some of her lessons or her use of eccentric costumes and props.
Drama is a great way to engage your students' imaginations and interest, and if you are able to put on a costume and put a bit of fun into your lesson, your students certainly won't be bored. When you lesson plan for math, put on your out-of-the-box creative hat and see what you can do.
Here are a few quick suggestions to help you create a dramatic lesson plan for math:
Costumes and alter egos. Teaching geometry? Turn yourself into Pythagoras (with the help of a large bedsheet) and enlist your class to help you discover your theory. Or borrow directly from Ms Toliver and have an Egyptian theme when learning about pyramids and other 3-D solids.
Use songs and rhymes. If you look online, you can easily find tapes and CDs to help children learn times tables and simple algebra principles. Your lesson plan for math can include a sing-along session or you can just have the CDs and tapes handy for playing in the background or at a listening post. Your kinaesthetic learners may be able to move to the beat while listening to these songs, which will help them learn.
Props: A lot of codes and ciphers have a basis in mathematics, so why not have a spy theme where your Secret Agents have to find and decode the messages? A lesson plan for this will need a bit of preparation on your part creating the codes (hint: you can make an easy invisible ink by dipping a quill pen in potato juice. Iodine solution is used to develop the message).
Not all of us have the dramatic flair of Ms Toliver, and some of us might not have the confidence to dress up as an Egyptian queen or a Greek philosopher. Ms Toliver can claim that "It doesn't bother me to break out into song," but some of us can't carry much of a tune. Does this mean that any lesson plan for math that we can create has to be staid and boring?
It doesn't have to be, if you use a video. By using a video, you can be a bit more confident - and you can edit out your mistakes and re-take sequences if you find yourself getting the giggles. Or you can enlist your more dramatic friends (or colleagues) to help you make your own educational videos.
All videos have to be used properly and can't really stand on their own. It's very easy to make a mistake when using a video in class, whether the video has been slotted into a lesson plan for math or a lesson plan for another subject area. Mistakes you don't even know you're making can be impacting your lesson. Watch this free video for some important information on why you should be using school videos and download the expert guide for easy solutions.
Looking for math tuition Singapore or maths tutor Singapore, check this url.
No comments:
Post a Comment