Module 10

Hey Jess! Hope you're having a great week!

Nets Activity
How could you use a similar activity with students in the classroom? Were you able to complete the activity without too much frustration? What are some anticipated issues while doing this activity with students?
I personally thought this activity would be much more challenging than it turned out to be. Visualizing it at first seemed difficult, but when doing it, it came easier than I thought. I think this may be the same for students doing this activity. Some students can get easily discouraged and not want to try activities that seem too difficult. To be completely honest, when I first looked through it, it was something I really did not want to begin because it was so difficult for me to visualize, and I could see students reacting the same way. Also, some students visualize things and get very set on things happening one certain way. In order to do this activity, they would need to remain flexible in their mindset and move on if they find that what they thought would work actually does not. I was able to complete the activity, though, with little to no frustration. As for a similar activity in the classroom, I think it would help to use a material other than paper to make these. Students could get frustrated and rip the paper, so another material could help prevent that. Did this seem difficult to you when first reading it over, too? I think with our students, with activities like this, it could be helpful to explain that this is the kind of activity that may seem confusing at first, but it will get easier as we work through it.

Textbook Reading
2. Briefly describe the nature of the content in each of the four geometric strands discussed in this chapter: Shapes and Properties, Location, Transformations, and Visualization.

• Shapes and Properties: This portion discusses the classification of different shapes and the ability to differentiate between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional. The students should be able to identify different shapes, but also be able to explain what properties make it that shape and how they differ from others.
• Location: This involves using grids and coordinates to locate a shape and its size/proportions on a grid. 
• Transformations: This portion discusses the changes in size or positioning of shapes. The portions stay the same, but the shape can be made larger, smaller, slide, turn, or flip.
• Visualization: This involves creating images in your head, being able to visualize the looks and features of different shapes. This can include visualizing the properties of the shapes without needing to look at them.

3. What can you do when the students in your classroom are at different Van Hiele levels of thought?

While we want to teach each student at the level of thought they are at, this can be difficult when our students are on different levels. This is why it is very important to get to know our students quickly. When planning lessons or activities, we should plan modifications for different levels, even if they are slight. We can group students to do this more easily, but that is not always necessary. Adding challenge or bonus questions can help students with higher levels of thought explore these levels without excluding students at a lower level of thought.

4. Find one of the suggested applets, or explore GeoGebra and explain how it can be used. What are the advantages of using the computer instead of hands-on material or drawings?

I chose to explore GeoGebra and I am glad I did! It is a great resource to use in the future. You can create any shape and play around with different shapes, which could really help children when beginning to learn geometry. I also liked that it allowed the user to create 3-dimensional shapes, so the students could study the difference between 2D and 3D. This can be easier than materials or drawings because we would not have to worry about drawing or creating the shape correctly, it is just easily made for us. The students are able to see the different angles in shapes and rotate them. This could help with issues we came across reading the case studies in our last module. Students could look at all different types of triangles and study their similarities and differences. I think this site would be very beneficial in the classroom!
If you used GeoGebra, did you find any difficulties using it? 

Spatial Readings/Building Plans
Did you find any of these activities challenging? If so, what about the activity made it challenging? 
I found a few of these activities confusing, but I got through them. The train activity and the shadow activity threw me a bit, but I am also very directionally challenged so that may have something to do with it.

Why is it important that students become proficient at spatial visualization?
Spatial visualization is important as it is something the students will need to use in the real world often. It will help them in the future when learning to drive, along with following directions and many other things.

At what grade level do you believe students are ready for visual/spatial activities?
I think this is something that students are ready to begin as early as possible. Even introducing this a bit in Kindergarten seems reasonable, as students need to have a sense of the world around them.

How can we help students become more proficient in this area? 
I think a big way we can help our students is by connecting these concepts to the real world. Not only will this show them the importance of learning this material and hopefully help them pay closer attention to it, but it also it will help them make connections. Starting this early in their education and understanding that this takes practice will help them. Allowing them to do things like this over and over will help them be comfortable with it at an earlier age, enabling them to be better at it later on.
Do you think kindergarten is too early to begin introducing this concept?

Tangrams

Making the square and rectangle was MUCH harder than I thought it would be and it took me forever! I kept getting so close but not quite there. With section B, I was able to do the first couple of problems easily but struggled a little more with B5 and B6. I ended up having to start over a few times because I did not cut it where it needed to be cut. I think my problem with these questions was that I kept visualizing what I thought would work and it would end up being slightly off. For B5, I finally just had to look at the solution.

Do you think these activities are easier when you try to visualize the solution first, or when you jump right into trying things without visualizing?

For Further Discussion

I went on the Toys"R"Us site to explore different toys and found a lot that could help children with different aspects of geometry!

This toy is perfect for children who are just beginning to learn how to identify different shapes. If babies and kids use this before beginning school, it will help them know their shapes and they can work with the names as well. This would be a very early introduction to geometry. (Sorry for the gray scaled image - I think it was like that since it's out of stock on their site.)

These two would be perfect for learning what 2-dimensional shapes fit together to make 3-dimensional shapes and to allow the children to explore making these shapes. 

Blocks like this would be perfect for the activity we did with the Tangrams. Students could make bigger shapes out of the small blocks.