Digital Media, Manipulatives, and Gamification.
The following pages covers aspects of differentiated instruction that I believe have had a positive impact on my understanding of mathematical instruction in 8P29. Digital media, manipulatives, and gamification all are relevant components of differentiated instruction. Significantly, they all provide different qualities to the nature of differentiated instruction. Some of these qualities include detailed instructional assistance, learning style accommodations, creative inspirations, and learning entertainment. The purpose of differentiated instruction is to advance learning not only through providing diverse learning opportunities for students, but also by providing learning activities that are more engaging for students. The goal of this latter application is to increase student interest in mathematics by making the content of learning more interesting for students.
Digital Media
Math Antics, "Triangles". YouTube.
Numberphile, "Mile of Pi". YouTube.
Digital media has become an increasingly important aspect of educational instruction. The useful application of digital media applications in academic setting are still being explored. In my experience I have found digital media to provide three major contributions to both class room instruction and student learning. These are: instructional resource, instructional application, and student resource.
To begin with instructional resources, I have found that digital media offers detailed informational knowledge about mathematics for instructors to acquire. Like students, instructors need hone their learning techniques and recall previous learning. Enjoying an instructional video is often more relaxing and refreshing then reviewing an old text book on a particular subject. Digital media is therefore a useful resource for instructors to access to refresh their knowledge on a particular topic before teaching that subject to their class.
Digital media is also particularly useful as an instructional application. In terms of differentiated instruction, digital media provides an ideal function for a "flipped classroom model." The flipped classroom model reverses how class and homework time is commonly spent. Traditionally, an instructor lectured on a subject in class and required students to work on assigned problem at home. While the flipped classroom model requires students to view lectures at home via digital media and would work on assigned problems during class time. The purpose of this strategy is to maximize the time the instructor has to work with students individually or collectively. Since class time is saved on lecturing more time can be spent addressing student questions, concerns, and difficulties. In my view the Youtube channel Math Antics provides an ideal example for the kind of digital media appropriate for the flipped classroom. The videos found on this site cover a vast array of mathematical content, they are detailed, clear, and entertaining.
Finally, digital media can provide a useful resource tools for students. As a student resource digital media is useful for a variety of reasons. First, its format provides unique accessibility opportunities. That is, instructors are not always available to answer questions. Digital media offers students the capability to access assistance through instructional videos. Further, this access offer repetition and variation as students can replay videos and explore alternative instructional videos, respectively. It is also significant that digital media can also be a useful form of learning entertainment and inspiration. This is an important aspect of student motivation that I think is often overlooked by instructors. Increased student interest should hopefully increase student learning. In my opinion the YouTube channel Numberphile provides engaging videos that encourage student creativity through there novel approaches to mathematics.
Manipulatives
Number Wheel
Other manipulatives useful to students are counting blocks, number wheels, place value tables, place value blocks, pattern blocks, geometric solids, fraction circles, fraction bars, dice, geo-boards, measuring devices, clocks, and much more. All of these tools can add an extra dimension to both instruction and learning. Understanding how to use these effectively has been a significant part of developing my effectiveness as an instructor of mathematics. I will be sure to implement this variety of manipulative tools in future class to help me differentiate instruction and improve student learning and interest in mathematics.
Gamification
Gamification has been an interesting learning experience for me in relation to mathematics. Prior to attending class at 8P29 I was unaware of the vast number of mathematics games available online. While the number of games and their variety was striking to me, perhaps the most surprising was the quality of some of these games. In particular, the math game Prodigy was impressively complex and engaging. This game has parallels to games such as Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda, with the important exception that its primary focus is on mathematics. That is, to advance in the game students must engage in and solve various math problems. Prodigy is a lot of fun and it can also be quite addictive. To my mind this a perfect means to getting students interested in mathematics by both entertaining them and challenging them.
While Prodigy provides an ideal math game in terms of quality and engagement, there are plenty of other games that I have found useful for students. One such site: Cool Math Games has hundreds of mathematics games on a wide range of subjects with various levels of difficulty. The variety this site offers is fantastic, providing the potential to reach most, if not all, student interests. These kinds of games are perfect for students to hone their mathematics skills without them actually realizing that they are doing work. Sometimes the label "game" is enough for students to get involved in the activity without much resistance or reluctance, which is sometimes encounter when they are asked to do more traditional assignments. Finally, while math games are great for student practice and improvement of learning, they also offer them a means of incentive. The games themselves often have built in incentives to help offer motivation. But they can also be used as reward by teacher for good behaviour or for the accomplishment of satisfactory work. I think in the future I will employ gamification in my teaching strategy both to help student interest in mathematics and to help improve student learning.
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