Leavell+Wall

**1) Introduction**



My name is Leavell Wall and I am from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I am currently a senior at Clemson University and am studying Mathematics Teaching. As a teacher, I hope to help engage students with creative teaching methods and become lifelong learners. Also, I wish to become a coach as well to help students make good decisions inside and outside the classroom. Whether I'm on the field or in the classroom, being a positive example for my students and players will be a top priority.

Technological aids in teaching can be very helpful in presenting new material to students and expand their understanding on previously learned material. The possible downfall with technology is for teachers and students to become too reliant on its ease of use and accessibility. For teachers, we should use technology aids in teaching to expose our students to the possibilities of what technology can do. At the same time, we should emphasize to students that technology is only a tool and understanding of the content still relies on them.

When I was in middle and high school, the primary technological tools that were used were calculators. We used them in lower level courses mainly to accomplish arithmetic quickly. In upper level math courses, we used trigonometric features, graphical representation of functions, and computations as well.

**2) Online Assessment Tools ** media type="custom" key="10374550" align="center"

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With this technology, it's easy to assess students in different ways. You can get immediate feedback to change teaching techniques, you can assess a student's prior knowledge, or see how much they've learned in your class. A possible challenge could be getting every student access to technology to complete the poll. I might use this technology for a quick quiz or possibly a short homework assignment. This would not be my first choice for student assessment, but I think it is practicle and innovative.

**3) Video Recording ** http://www.khanacademy.org/video/averages?playlist=Algebra

This video was designed to give an overview of how to find the mean of multiple numbers. The lesson was concise and well developed, and the lesson worked both forwards and backwards when determining averages. This lesson is missing some key features, such as proper notation and vocabulary, and it doesn't address all the types of averaging. A teacher could use this in the classroom as an overview at the end of a chapter to refresh the students on the material that provides extra instructional time.

**4) Virtual Graphing Calculator **



** Would you use Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 in your future classroom? **I would use this in my classroom if my students had different graphing calculators and I wanted to use a generic calculator to demonstrate a task. This would encourage students to explore the calculator they have and become familiar with its keys and functions. If my students all were required to purchase a specific calculator, then I would use a virtual version of the calculator they had to avoid too much confusion. **Would you recommend your students to use this software at home as a homework supporter?** This tool could be very helpful in helping students because it does not only what a graphing calculator does, but so much more as well. Students can look at example problems from class or their homework and use Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 to see the steps involved in solving the problem. Also, the software can let students work the problems and print out the work they did. This can let teachers examine how the students approached the problem and solved it without the students having to write down their work twice.

** What kind of mathematical view(s) emerge(s) from the Microsoft Mathematics 4.0? Assume that you are a high school student and you use this software at home or during some of your mathematics classes with the guidance of your teacher. How would you view or perceive mathematics in the light of this software? Explain it. ** Mathematics can be seen as progressive and innovative instead of stale and stagnant when you use tools such as Microsoft Mathematics 4.0. As a student, I would see this tool as a way for me to do the same work in a more concise way. Also, I think that students will see this as a way to enhance their understanding of math instead of another hoop to jump through as a teacher.

**5) Smart Exchange Reflection **  <span style="color: #0f0f6c; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0f0f6c; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">This activity was an assessment on the perimeters and areas of different figures. This lesson was designed to cover the South Carolina Curriculum Standard MA.9-12.G-4: the student will demonstrate through the mathematical processes an understanding of the properties of quadrilaterals and other polygons and the relationships between and among them. The lesson is an assessment of the processes used to compute the area and perimeters of similar shapes, as well as the mathematical processes used to compute these measurements. This lesson is different from a traditional assessment because there is no paper involved in assessing the student's understanding of similar figures, and there can be instant feedback after the students take the quiz. If a teacher used MS Mathematics 4.0 to assess a student, the work might be thorough, but it also might provide too much assistance and boarder on cheating. Some possible challenges in using this assessment is that there is nothing that incorporates student work, so there is no way to check if a student just guessed or truly understood the material. An easy way to fix this problem would be to require students to write down their work and turn it in separately to see if the student actually gained a proper understanding of the material. <span style="color: #0f0f6c; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #0f0f6c; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #0f0f6c; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">

<span style="color: #0f0f6c; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #0f0f6c; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
 * <span style="color: #144814; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">6) GeoGebra Reflection **

<span style="color: #0f0f6c; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">** What do you think about dynamic mathematics environment? Do they contribute to students' learning? How? ** <span style="color: #0f0f6c; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #0f0f6c; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The classroom environment is continually changing, from kindergarten to college. GeoGebra is a great tool that can engage students in new material and help them explore it so that they can understand it better. With this tool, it gives instant feedback if you make a change; students can use this information to make generalizations and formulate their own conclusions. This allows for students to use their own reasoning and interpreting skills in ways they may have not tried before. <span style="color: #0f0f6c; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #0f0f6c; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #0f0f6c; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">** Compare GeoGebra with GSP regarding your experiences. Be specific with examples, tools, and design features both have. ** <span style="color: #0f0f6c; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #0f0f6c; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Both GSP and GeoGebra are powerful tools to use in the classroom. GSP is a program teachers can use easily without much guidance. The tool set-up is straightforward and construction is intuitive. GeoGebra is similar to GSP with its use of construction of tools, but is more of a combination between Matlab and GSP. GeoGebra seems to be a more powerful tool than GSP, but it takes more time to learn how to effectively utilize because of its complexity. Both, though, are great tools that can aid teachers in effectively helping students explore and understand the material better.