EDMA262 Assessment 2

Big ideas For many, algebra revolves around equations and finding ‘x.’ This is exactly the image I used to have in my head when I thought of algebra. This week, we learnt that even some of the youngest learners are using early algebraic thinking, as algebra is the ability to understand relationships and patterns, with algebraic equations being statements of relationships (Jamieson-Proctor, 2021). I was initially hesitant to engage with this week’s topic as algebra is something I really struggled with in high school. Due to this, my belief before participating in this unit was that algebra was something that was only introduced in high school (except for simple missing element equations e.g. 5 + ? = 11).  Concept, Skill or Strategy The patterning skills we were introduced to in week 6 that also apply to early algebra are: 1. Recognising the pattern (What’s happening?) 2. Describing the pattern (What’s repeating?) 3. Repeating or copying the pattern (need to be able to see the relati...

Big ideas Place Value (PV) was further explored this week, with a large focus being put on the teaching sequence for PV concepts. PV for numbers above 9 is useful for many mathematical purposes, including helping us form a picture when we’re solving problems, and helping us use estimation. As a teacher, I need to ensure I am providing students with opportunities to picture large numbers in and outside the classroom, as it is just as important for older students in primary school to understand the concept of large numbers as it is for young learners to understand the concept of numbers less than 10. Concept, Skill or Strategy As we learnt in week 7, PV is actually made up of 8 concepts. This week, we learnt about a sequence of 8 steps to teach PV: The first step is particularly important as there may be confusion around trading e.g. 10 ones for 1 ten. This week I found it really interesting when one of our own teachers reflected on her teaching of mathematics, when she once told a stude...

Big Ideas This week in lectures and tutorials, we covered a large array of content. We firstly looked at number sense, numeration and mental computation. Numeration and mental computation was linked back to our content from weeks 2-5, and we were reminded of the big 7 thinking strategies across addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  We then moved on to place value, which I found to be a much larger concept than I expected. This week I learnt that there is not just the ‘ones, tens, hundreds, thousands’ or the base 10 system. I found it really interesting to learn about other bases such as base 5 and base 3, and to see them modelled for me, as I was only ever taught the base 10 system at school. As a teacher, I will need to ensure I emphasise the importance of place value to my students and incorporate it into every area of mathematics. This is because place value is “one of the cornerstones of our number system” and is part of all work with whole numbers, the metric sy...

Big Ideas This week was all about pre-number concepts, that is, concepts children must understand before they formally start the study of number. They include understanding number relationships, attributes, patterning, counting principles and subitizing. The Early Years Learning Framework (DEEWR, 2010) highlights the importance of these numeracy capabilities as they relate to outcome 5, “children are effective communicators” (p.22). As numeracy capabilities are recognised as important aspects of communication and are vital for successful learning across the curriculum, these pre-number concepts are the “powerful mathematical ideas children need to become numerate” (DEEWR, 2010, p.41). Concept: Patterning Concept: When a child can describe what patterning is Skill: When they start doing it and making patterns While all 6 of the pre-number concepts are vital for children to understand the further study of number, the concept of patterning stands out as it combines together all of the p...

 Big Ideas This week, the focus of our content was division. The concept of division is separating a number into equal groups. Division is the inverse operation of multiplication. Knowledge of multiplication is a prerequisite for completing division, as each basic multiplication fact has a related division one (Reys et al. 2020). As a teacher, I must ensure my students have an understanding of multiplication before teaching division due to the inverse relationship between the two. I also need to make sure I am presenting my students with a variety of division problems using both of the two types of division. Division can be separated into two types: partition and quotition: The Language Model Concept, Skill or Strategy As mentioned earlier, division and multiplication have an inverse relationship. This is why ‘think multiplication’ is a key strategy in division (Reys et al., 2020). To visualise this, division and multiplication mats can be used: (Origo One, 2017) Fact families are ...

Big ideas This week, the focus was on the concept of multiplication and the skills and strategies involved. Multiplication is often viewed as a special case of addition with equal sized groups, or simply, repeated addition of equal groups (Reys et al., 2020). As a teacher, I will need to ensure my students have full understanding of the concept of addition before starting multiplication, and I also need to expose them to the four different ways multiplication can be pictured. Concept, Skill or Strategy As we know, a concept is a picture we form in our heads about a particular thing. The concept of multiplication can be pictured in four different ways: Language Model Misconception For many children, zero represents nothing. Because of this, a common mistake involving zero in multiplication, is the failure by many students to realise that multiplying any number by zero yields zero (Lokanath, 2020). As zero represents nothing to some students, many believe that a multiplication by zero ju...

Big Ideas This week, we started by looking at numeracy, and how it is different from mathematics. The words numeracy and mathematic are often used interchangeably but they are fundamentally different: Then, we focused on the concept of subtraction, and the skills and thinking strategies involved. Subtraction is when you know only one part of a total and you have to work out the other part (Jamieson-Proctor, 2021). Subtraction is the inverse of addition, and there are actually three types of subtraction: takeaway, difference or comparison, and missing addend. Concept, skill or Strategy When doing subtraction, the three addition strategies can be used in reverse (count on, use doubles, use 10). Count-back for example can be used in subtraction like count-on in addition. This strategy can be introduced using cover up cards   (Jamieson-Proctor, 2021) These cards are what you may use for children who are at the materials learning stage, and you should cover up real materials if the chil...