You are what you are and where you are because of what has gone into your mind. You can change what you are and where you are by changing what goes into your mind.
As good as i am today, I've been through a tough situation for these past 10 months of working. Not to mention the hardship I need to undertake every week going in and out from school, its so tiring but i have no choice but to endure it and keep moving. Even though the salary is quite big at my work place but still its not an easy life there. But its getting better after the solar power activated. Most of our work can be done without any problem. Next year the telephone line will be operational and there would be no problem in communication from outside the island.
talking about work, I have too many problem regarding on how to get the pupils learn. i want them to try to learn something from me. But they seem to not learn anything and these was the main problem that makes them hard to move on and increase their level of education.
These problem involved: - pupils not really competent in using Malay - hard to understand certain word that i say to them - their education level is too low ( don't know how to read, pronounce words,etc) - when I ask question no one answer a single word (pupils are too shame to answer question or to read) - illustration of what i have teach them ( today i teach A they learn A then tomorrow they forget what is A and i have to repeat teaching A to them)
It's a little bit complicated for me to understand on how to make them not to forget what i have taught them.I even tried many method: make an interesting teaching kits for them to play while learning, use singing method, picture based learning but still nothing work well for them. I begin doubting about my ability to teach them. Am I capable of making them success in their study? I really hope next year i'll do much better than this year.
This week marked as the 6th week, two weeks before we closed the month of February 2009. Time move so fast, sometimes I feel that I cannot keep up with its pace, the works doubled up and a lot of challenges triggered. I strongly believe that, a human’s life is not complete without challenges and problems, only one who can endure until the end is the winner. I always shout at myself that no pain, no gain every time problems arise. This week is kind tough for me especially in thinking what will be the issues will arise when I officially became a teacher within two years from now on! Can I become a great teacher like Madam Lam Saw Yin? Madam Lim Bee Leng? Mr. Koo Teck Hock? Madam Juliana Osong? Can I control the class very well or can I teach mathematics in the most effective ways? I feel headache just to concern what will be happen in the future. Based from reading from Article X, different issues arise in different countries. For example, in Malaysia, teaching Maths in English is very challenging especially when we as the new teachers transferred to a place where its population cannot understand the English at all. If they don’t understand any words, how can they understand the concept mathematics? As we concern, the problems which may arise here is the language factor. Other issue which maybe existed is the method that we as the teachers will be using whether based from the text and workbook only, teaching kits or both. So at the end of the week, a debate between groups from Maths 1 and Maths are being held. From the debate, a lot of issues were highlighted and recommendations were being discussed. Another interesting debate is about; Training a mathematics generalist or a specialist in handling primary mathematics in school: Its impact on children’s learning of mathematics. This sure makes the whole class on fire. For me, I prefer the generalist especially for those schools who lacks of teacher. Flexibility and sophisticated is the key of the generalist. He maybe can be English and Mathematics teacher; two in one, more effective and efficient.
Reflection Week 4 This week I have learned about algorithms. It is about how to solve a math problem by using mental calculation. At school we need to make sure the students understand how to solve a problem and also to make sure they know why we use certain steps to get the answers. I believe that when the students understand why they use their problem solving steps to solve a math problem, they would be able to answer as many questions in a various way of solving it. I also have learned a few new addition steps which called Partial sums method and column addition method. It is much faster to calculate mathematical problem using this two addition method than the standard method we usually use. Other than that, we also learned a new subtraction method for me that can easily and much faster to solve a mathematical problem. During this week also, we have done a little bit of discussion whether calculator is suitable to be used at primary school these day or not. For me, I prefer using calculator at school. This is because students can learned number much faster this way in fact children like to play with something when they study so using a calculator might attract them to be involve in learning session.
In the 5th week, we came to our last part of the operation sense and computations. Algorithms known as computational skill with paper-and-pencil procedures have been viewed as an essential component of children’s mathematical education. In mathematics, computing, linguistics and related subjects, an algorithm is a sequence of finite instructions, often used for calculation and data processing. It is formally a type of effective method in which a list of well-defined instructions for completing a task will, when given an initial state, proceed through a well-defined series of successive states, eventually terminating in an end-state. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic; some algorithms, known as probabilistic algorithms, incorporate randomness. Beside that, each of us needs to summarize and present our view on whether or not children in primarily school used calculators and the way in which they could be used. This open discussion sparks many different opinions; some oppose and many support the idea. For me, appropriate calculators should be available to all students at all times. My point is as students’ mathematical knowledge grows and changes, so does their need for calculators. Children outgrow calculators just as they outgrow shoes. The calculators needs of students in primary grades are different from those of students in secondary and college school. A calculator is a device for performing mathematical calculations, distinguished from a computer by having a limited problem solving ability and an interface optimized for interactive calculation rather than programming. Calculators can be hardware or software, and mechanical or electronic, and are often built into devices such as PDAs or mobile phones. In most countries, students use calculators for schoolwork. There was some initial resistance to the idea out of fear that basic arithmetic skills would suffer. There remains disagreement about the importance of the ability to perform calculations "in the head", with some curricula restricting calculator use until a certain level of proficiency has been obtained, while others concentrate more on teaching estimation techniques and problem-solving. Research suggests that inadequate guidance in the use of calculating tools can restrict the kind of mathematical thinking that students engage in. Others have argued that calculator use can even cause core mathematical skills to atrophy, or that such use can prevent understanding of advanced algebraic concepts. There are other concerns - for example, that a pupil could use the calculator in the wrong fashion but believe the answer because that was the result given. Teachers try to combat this by encouraging the student to make an estimate of the result manually and ensuring it roughly agrees with the calculated result. Also, it is possible for a child to type in −1 × −1 and obtains the correct answer '1' without realizing the principle involved. In this sense, the calculator becomes a crutch rather than a learning tool, and it can slow down students in exam conditions as they check even the most trivial result on a calculator.
For this week, we focused on the role of mental computation and computational estimation. Mental computation is computation done all in the head that is without tools such as a calculator or pencil and paper. In fact, research has documented a wide variety of mental computation techniques that children have created on their own and that make sense to them (Fuson, 2003). During tutorial hour, we implement the activity based from Groves which is known as ‘How did you do it?’ ,in this activity, our lecturer, Madam Lam, present an additional question which need to be done using mentally. The responses were variety; some using the mental strategy by adding from the left, counting on, making tens, doubling, and making compatibles. For me, it’s hard to explain. I got the answer by automatically and it’s so mystery. When I look up for this type of mental computation in the internet, it’s been shown that it’s very rare to find this type mental strategy. It’s like when someone hit your knee, your knee will automatically reflects. This phenomena known as automatic reflects. Well I suppose that can be best describing my unique mental strategy. Beside from learning the mental computation, we also learn the estimation skills. In my opinion, estimation is very helpful especially when we need to estimating a very large quantity. For example, we need estimating criteria when we doing research to estimating the population of tourists who visiting Sabah every year or estimating the number of bacteria which living in the microorganism habit when doing the microbiologist area. Learning about estimation gives student their first encounter with an area of mathematics that does not focus on exact answers and yet is natural part of mathematics. Estimation involves a different mindset from the mindset that says only an exact answer will do.
This week I have learned about the number operation and basic facts. Besides that we also have learned week 4 topic that is operations sense and computations. In number operation and basic facts, we have learned about how to develop meaning involving the operation addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. What we need to do is to illustrates the children using model and concrete things which to make them understand how to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers.
We have learned the basic facts of addition which involved two, one-digit addends and their sum. The basic subtraction facts rely on the inverse relationship of addition and subtraction for their definition. Basic multiplication facts each involve two, one-digit factors and their product. While basic division facts rely on the inverse relationship of multiplication and division. We can see the relationship between each operation by these facts.
In operations sense and computation, it explains about mental computations and computational estimations. In this topic, we are given a mathematical problem and need to solve it using mental computations. After that we need to explain how we do it or what method do we use to solve it. The purpose of this mental calculation is to make the children to be able to find their perfect strategies and method to solve the problem. After that they need to reflect back what they have used to solve the problem.
This week tutorial task is to prepare an activity which can be used at school to make student learn mathematic while having fun. My group prepares an activity that called addition BINGO. The teacher draw a card which contains mathematical problem and the student as participant solve the question using mental computations then they tick the answer on the paper given. Whoever finishes ticking five numbers in a row or column will win the game.
