Thomas Berry
M01104571
Analysis of The Case of Nancy Upshaw The case of Nancy Upshaw is about a 7th grade teacher and her students. In the case Ms. Upshaw wants the students to work on their basic problem-solving skills. In the activity that they do in class Ms. Upshaw has them working on the large number lab activities. The mathematics in this case focuses on the students understanding the large numbers in terms of volume measurement. This will help them understand what It means to measure volume. The students are not given a specific way to measure the volume but instead must make predictions and use tools given to come up with an accurate result and compare this with the actual measurements of the room. They will do this to find out the …show more content…
This is done by visualizing the layers of blocks or balls. In the case Ms. Upshaw uses this strategy with several of the students. (paragraph 13-14, 19-20). In the study the students us the length time width time height formula in a lot of the lab activities. (paragraph 15-16,20). One of the best examples of using this layer approach is in paragraph 30 when Ms. Upshaw asks Mariola to explain her observation in the chart. She talks about the connection between the layering approach and the formula for volume of a rectangular prism. The students also must think about converting units in this case when thinking about blocks and balls and turning them into centimeters and meters. For example Rolando, Andres, and Tomas’s groups use and approach in which the metric measurement of each dimension is converted to a unit of soccer balls.(paragraph 10,18-20). Ms. Upshaw also said in the student that many groups used a strategy of finding the volume of the room and dividing by the volume of one block. Then they use a strategy based on determining how many blocks would fit along each dimension.(paragraph 26) Many students measured the edge length of a block or the diameter of a ball and used these measurements to reason through the problem. With all of this reasoning and thinking about the volume of the rooms in terms of balls and blocks, the students had to guess and estimate how many would be used. The students are asked in the activity to make predictions about how many balls or blocks would it take to fill up the room on the sheet handed out. Prediction and estimating volume is a goal of Ms. Upshaw this is why she does not allow them to us calculators. Ms. Upshaw says that growing a sense of large numbers is a main goal of the unit in which this lesson is embedded. (paragraph 7) So
M01104571
Analysis of The Case of Nancy Upshaw The case of Nancy Upshaw is about a 7th grade teacher and her students. In the case Ms. Upshaw wants the students to work on their basic problem-solving skills. In the activity that they do in class Ms. Upshaw has them working on the large number lab activities. The mathematics in this case focuses on the students understanding the large numbers in terms of volume measurement. This will help them understand what It means to measure volume. The students are not given a specific way to measure the volume but instead must make predictions and use tools given to come up with an accurate result and compare this with the actual measurements of the room. They will do this to find out the …show more content…
This is done by visualizing the layers of blocks or balls. In the case Ms. Upshaw uses this strategy with several of the students. (paragraph 13-14, 19-20). In the study the students us the length time width time height formula in a lot of the lab activities. (paragraph 15-16,20). One of the best examples of using this layer approach is in paragraph 30 when Ms. Upshaw asks Mariola to explain her observation in the chart. She talks about the connection between the layering approach and the formula for volume of a rectangular prism. The students also must think about converting units in this case when thinking about blocks and balls and turning them into centimeters and meters. For example Rolando, Andres, and Tomas’s groups use and approach in which the metric measurement of each dimension is converted to a unit of soccer balls.(paragraph 10,18-20). Ms. Upshaw also said in the student that many groups used a strategy of finding the volume of the room and dividing by the volume of one block. Then they use a strategy based on determining how many blocks would fit along each dimension.(paragraph 26) Many students measured the edge length of a block or the diameter of a ball and used these measurements to reason through the problem. With all of this reasoning and thinking about the volume of the rooms in terms of balls and blocks, the students had to guess and estimate how many would be used. The students are asked in the activity to make predictions about how many balls or blocks would it take to fill up the room on the sheet handed out. Prediction and estimating volume is a goal of Ms. Upshaw this is why she does not allow them to us calculators. Ms. Upshaw says that growing a sense of large numbers is a main goal of the unit in which this lesson is embedded. (paragraph 7) So