Summary: Collaborative Learning

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I am from a small, mostly poor, mostly black town in southern Mississippi, and after a lot of hard work and foolhardy dreaming during my high school years, I enrolled at William Carey University to pursue my undergraduate degree. Upon my arrival, I was terrified. I was the second person in my family to attend college. After teaching Accelerated Geometry and Algebra I, I have realized that teaching, as well as learning, is not a passive activity. I believe that teaching mathematics well involves an effective understanding of how students learn mathematics. At the core of my teaching style and philosophy is a concern for my students. I care deeply about each and every student and make every effort to assist all students reach their potentials …show more content…
Some days include student-centered group or whole-class discussions, others include small-group investigations, and still others see individuals working one-on-one with another student or with me. Collaborative learning can be valuable to some emerging math students, but instructors must consider the structure of the class as well as their own comfort level with collaborative learning (Cafarella, 2014). The variety of classroom interaction aids in developing healthy relationships among students and between students and me. These different classroom practices assist in addressing the modified learning styles involved in the mathematics …show more content…
First of all, different students learn in different ways, and one representation may be easier for a student to understand than another. Secondly, knowing multiple representations and methods of solution makes for better problem solving; if students know several ways of attacking a problem, then there is a better chance of them being able to solve it.
As an aid to my use of multiple representations, I make use of technology in my classroom, especially graphing calculators and the Smartboard. Through my experiences using technology and my teaching with technology, I have concluded that there are more and less efficient ways of using it. Students need to understand that technology is a tool, much like a compass or a protractor, and that technology must be used only as a tool. Central to my use of technology in the classroom is the idea that students must understand what they are doing mathematically even when they use technology as an

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