2007-11-02 10:30:00
The first year at Hogeschool Utrecht's study Tweedegraads docent wiskunde starts you off with a course in statistics. They could've picked any part of math to start out with, but it was this one :)
The course, Statistics 1, is divided into two classes: one dealing with the actual maths, the other dealing with the didactics involved with teaching statistics. The first class ends with an exam, while the second requires you to hand in a total of eight papers (called dossier opdrachten. This page serves as a portal to all eight of my reports.
As their first assignment of the year, students are asked to investigate how statistics are taught in high school. We are asked to focus on the first three years of HS, thus limiting the scale of the job.
Each student picks one specific method and searches through all the books for those three years. Any mention of statistics should get a little footnote, while whole chapters on statistics deserve a thorough analysis. For my report I picked the Getal en ruimte method.
This document is available as a .PDF document and can be downloaded here. Be aware that the file is a whopping 10MB, due to the heavy use of images.
In a similar light as the first paper, students are asked to investigate the final terms for statistics. The VMBO have a list with specific subjects from statistics that should be featured in the exams. We are asked to pick one assignment per subject from the method we used for the first paper.
This document is available as a .PDF document and can be downloaded here. Be aware that the file is a whopping 6MB, due to the heavy use of images.
One of the many philosophies in teaching is direct instruction (directe instructie). One of the key principles of this philosophy is that one should keep student motivated. Motivated students are willing to accept education and will thus learn more efficiently. For more information on direct instruction, read BIT-report 1 on maths didactics.
In order to grasp students' attention it's good to start a class with a bang. We were asked to write three separate opening sessions (15 minutes each), which can be used in a class on statistics. One of these openings will be presented in class. For a report on these presentations, read my class notes for weeks 3 through 5.
My class openings use the following subjects:
This document is available as a .PDF document and can be downloaded here.
After giving the presentation mentioned with dossier opdracht 3, each student is given feedback by his classmates. Feedback is gathered through forms created by the student and through forms handed out by the teacher.
Dossier opdracht 4 gathers all the feedback into one report, for analysis. It's expected that I use this report as a guideline for future learning goals.
This document is available as a .PDF document and can be downloaded here.
In teaching statistics, schools often make a grab for software like MS Excel and VU Stat (or SPPS). For this report, students are asked to investigate the capabilities of these tools and to assess their usefulness in teaching statistics.
This document is available as a .PDF document and can be downloaded here.
For paper 5 we researched software that runs on the local computer, like Excel and VU Stat. With paper 6 we are asked to research online tools. One may not expect this, but there are a few websites out there that offer schools online learning suites.
This document is available as a .PDF document and can be downloaded here.
The students are asked to investigate GWAs. In this case, GWA stands for Geintegreerde Wiskunde Activiteit (Integrated Maths Activity). The idea behind GWAs are that they're supposed to help students discover the place math has in daily life.
GWA assignments pose the student a problem and give no hints as to the required theory. A student is expected to figure things out by himself. He'll need to discover which pieces of theory are required and how he should combine them.
Our investigation quickly glances over the how-and-why of GWAs. One of the most important conclusions of the report are five characteristics that a "good" GWA should have.
This document is available as a .PDF document and can be downloaded here.
As you may have read, dossier opdracht 8 gave me quite a bit of trouble.
The students are asked to create a GWA for students in their first, second or third year of high school. My report covers a GWA on electronic payments (electronisch betalen).
This document is available as a series of three .PDF documents. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.
kilala.nl tags: school, maths, summary,
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Posted by Thomas
Whoops, I just noticed that "dossier opdracht 8" is not a complete PDF file. It's cut off at page 9. This is probably due to the fact that the document switches layout there, from portrait to landscape. I will try to fix this PDF soon.
Posted by Thomas
There! That's fixed it :) There are now three parts available for download.
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