January 17, 2024

I feel that this is a great first blog post for 2024. My goal in Education 400 (Numeracy) specifically is to work on is healing my relationship with math so that I can prevent math blocks from inhibiting my future students from being successful. Earlier in the semester, we wrote our personal math story. For a majority of my years in the K-12 system math and I did not get along. There were only two years during that time period where I was excited about math, gained resilience, and developed a growth mindset in my approach to math. I felt successful because of what I was able to accomplish, but I could not have achieved these experiences without the support from my Grade 7 teacher and my Grade 10 math teacher. They made math fun, creative, and experiential which were learning styles that were appealing to me.

Card placement game provided by Jennifer Dionne and Laurie Todd

Fun, creative, and experiential are three words that I would use to describe our class today with Jennifer Dionne and Laurie Todd. With the card placement game I struggled but I found myself coming back to those previous experiences of resilience and growth mindset when I was stuck. With the multiplication blokus, there was room to be creative and multiple strategies that could be applied. As a former student in math class, I remember feeling that there was only one way to get to the desired answer because that was how it was taught a majority of the time. I love that these games prove that there are multiple avenues to go in when engaging in exploratory math games such as the card placement game and multiplication blokus.

Illustration by Emily Anderson – This image has some of my favorite tiles placed together from the original Blokus Game

I am a big believer in providing multiple entry points for students and gradually building confidence. Incorporating math games such as the ones we got to play today are great for practicing basic math facts, fostering creativity, and allowing for our students to get comfortable with their number sense skills. We were provided with some solid ways to help our students be proficient in necessary math skills needed to be successful in life. I am thankful to have these resources that I intend on using in my own classroom in the future.

Mussi for reading.

The photo on the left is me and my Grade 7 teacher at my high school graduation. Our grad class chose her to be our guest speaker as she had taught almost everyone in our graduating class in our elementary years. The photo on the right is me and my high school math teacher at the annual HSS grad staff hockey game. He was a phenomenal teacher at HSS for many years. Both teachers left lasting impacts on their students. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to learn from them.