Math Week #8

This week I learned that it is important to not worry so much about the here and then. This means to not just focus on how you learned math or how you understand math and presenting math currently. Think about what needs might be further down the road. It is tough to step outside of our own world which is heavily based on previous experience. Our previous experience can add a lot of value to the classroom but it is important that we not forget about what our students will be dealing with years from now. Today we worked on technology tools for math and a graphing program called Fathom. These are tools to further help our students with hands on manipulation of variables or objects as well as looking at numbers visually on a graph. These are just tools to use to extend the mathematical experience from what we "know." It is not just our job to get students out of their comfort zone; it is our job to get ourselves out of our own comfort zones. This means looking at these tools and taking them into consideration whether we feel like experts or not.

What do I have questions about? I still have questions about Fathom and its value over Excel. My experience has been with Excel. I am still not clear on all of the advantages and disadvantages. Again, this is previous experience creeping in as it always does. I like Excel and prefer it however; again, Fathom is new and not familiar so I still have questions.