The second workshop ( Data: Posing Answers and Finding Questions) is very relevant to my daily experiences as a certified teacher substitute. When I receive "emergency calls" for a substitute, I have lessons and materials for grades K5-5. I need materials for all grade levels so this type of workshop is helpful for me. The discussion of age-appropriate activities for each grade levels is very helpful for me. I have found that in general k5 students are learning to represent quantities with symbols. Therefore, when I work with kindergarten students they are usually using pictographs or in some instances concrete graphs. Concrete graphing is important with kindergarten students because they compare concrete objects (real objects in the classroom) and are then able to move to abstract ideas and graphs. If this foundation is provided in kindergarten, the students will be able to understand more complex graphing ideas in the higher grades.
When I have worked as a substitute in kindergarten classrooms, I have used pictographs. I have found these pictographs to be helpful with this age level. Also, we constantly work with concrete objects in kindergarten classrooms. Some teachers use counters, others use shapes and other use base ten rods or other types of materials.
Often, when I substitute in the first or second grade classrooms, the children complete activities similar to the ladybug activities which we viewed in the video. The children observe data and then on a record sheet use pictures or numerals to record the data. The data used in first grade and second grade classrooms are seeds, plants, roots and flowers. I felt the lady bug activity was a great idea and I enjoyed the video. I am studying ASL presently. And during the past year, I was able to assist and observe in bilingual classrooms so I enjoyed that aspect of the video also.
Also, in second grade classrooms , the concepts of Venn Diagrams are also used to display data. A variety of topics can be represented with Venn diagrams. They are also used in language arts, social studies and math. It is a great way to use literature across the curriculum and integrate mathematics into a reading lesson or social studies lesson.
The intermediate classrooms use bar graphs, circle graphs and tally charts. I have also taught concepts such as mean, median and mode to 4th grade students. I have not taught the concept of box and whisker plots and it would seem that this concept would be taught in 7th grade. I do not substitute in the middle schools.
The strategies presented in this workshop were strategies that I have used as a regular classroom teacher and as a substitute. I often use cooperative groups and student presentations. These strategies allow students to become effective communicators of mathematical concepts.
I feel that my experiences and skills with mathematics have prepared me to teach data and statistics at an elementary level. I worked for several years with local governments and I used the census materials frequently. Also, as a graduate student , I took two statistics courses. Therefore, I am familiar with data collection and the presentation of data. The topic of data and statistics is one with which I am comfortable.
Activities That I Will Incorporate Into My Lessons
I will develop a second grade activity for graphing from this lesson. I will plan a lesson that will involve students creating a class graph. The children will be asked to identify either objects in the classroom or outside the school in the playground or nature trail. The students will identify living animals or living plants and will record it on a data sheet. The class will then make a graph showing the results.
Another second grade activity that I will design a lesson for is a class survey. The students will take a survey of the types of socks their group members are wearing and record the results on an Activity Sheet. The students will work cooperatively to complete the graph. The students will create a class graph.
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