Practice » Teaching content

Goal: Identify important mathematical connections based on the current week's topic area.

Rationale

One day a college student commented that they never understood why \( (-1)(-1) = 1\). After about an hour of exploring different reasons, I asked the student to explain why the math idea work. Nothing. They couldn't do it. After much reflection my conclusion was that the student did not make connections between all of the problems we had done and, instead, viewed all the ideas independently.

Task

1. Choose a specific mathematical problem based on the week's content focus.
   1. number & operations (first week)
   2. algebra & functions (second week)
   3. geometry & measurement (third week)
   4. statistics & probability (fourth week)
2. Discuss how the problem mathematical is connected to some other mathematics. The other mathematics may be from the same content area or not.
3. Justify why this connection is important for students to learn.

Bring one copy to class for the instructor.

Possible resources

• Minnesota STEM teacher center

Scoring guide

Practice assignments are designed for formative feedback. Expect a lot of notes. I recommend using these notes to make edits to your practice assignment so you start your career with an improved version.

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