Niloo's EDCP 342 Blog

When I started this course, I did not have any assumptions of what the course would be like. Since I didn’t even know the meaning of the word “Pedagogy” before coming to the department, I did not have any ideas of what the course would be talking about. I learned a lot in this course; for one I can name of the very interesting relationship between math and art. that I saw in this course. I had never thought about the nice connection that the two are having.  In particular, in the project that I worked with two other classmates, Sierpinski Squared, by contacting the artist , we realized how  math and art world are inseparable .  Now I can see why some mathematicians, specially the very smart ones, also have a back ground in art: music, poetry, movies, theater or even painting/drawing. I can see the lovely correlation between math and art very clearly now. This course made me also think about my educational philosophy and pedagogy, made me more realized how much I love ...

The math fair we visited at West Point Gray Academy few weeks back, was very interesting for me also different in two ways. One, since in all  other math fairs that I was attending before; my partner and I were supposed to a prepare a math game for the students to play with; we had to explain the game strategy first, guide them through it or give them some hints before they try the games individually or with a friend. We were always observing them, and were writing our observations or reflections on what were going through their minds when trying our games. Whereas in the academy, we were there to play the students math games this time. We were the ones who had to answer to the questions that students had from us. we were supposed to try their games and come up with some responses and answers. I liked the idea that this time in the academy we got the chance to try the games without explaining and describing the games to the kids. The other reason that made the fair distinguish...

EDCP 342A Unit planning: Rationale and overview for planning a 3 to 4-week unit of work in secondary school mathematics Your name: Niloofar Razzaghi School, grade & course: R.E. Mountain Secondary School Topic of unit: Chapter 5 : Radical Expressions & Equation s   (1) Why do we teach this unit to secondary school students? Research and talk about the following: Why is this topic included in the curriculum? Why is it important that students learn it? What learning do you hope they will take with them from this? What is intrinsically interesting, useful, beautiful about this topic? (150 words) The goal is to show students how to solve equations with rational exponents and/or radicals. And to extend students' knowledge of solving to where an equation has either two radicals or two expressions with rational exponents. This lesson is taught to the grade 11 students and this topic is included in the curriculum because: 1) To show s...