Daire, S.A. (2010). Celebrating mathematics all year 'round. Mathematics Teacher, 103 (7), Pages 509-513.
The authors main goal of this article is to promote, as the title suggests, the celebration of mathematics all year 'round. She talks about how her school has cultivated a love of math, in particular the number pi, all because she started celebrating pi day, March 14, every year. Through hard work, generous donations, and personal sacrifices the author was able to extend her pi day celebrations to involve a wider range of students and other faculty members. Events, such as a Monopoly tournament, Halloween themed story problems, and a Valentines Day Love of Mathematics contest, are now a regular part of the school's yearly schedule. Getting students involved in the voluntary events can be difficult, but the draw of prizes such as a graphing calculator, 5 x 5 x 5 Rubik's cube, trophies, and other gifts, especially in a lower income area, is a great way to encourage participation. The article ends stating the fact that due to the implementation of events such as these, the students at this school have had much higher scores in statewide tests and have a greater desire to participate in mathematical discoveries.
I feel that this article hit its main goal right on the head. After reading, I am now quite excited to try some of these ideas once I start teaching. I can see how there would be difficulties getting other faculty/staff members involved, but I'm sure that with time it could happen. One thing that I feel would be nice would be a follow-up article on how to get other people excited about it. What other ideas could work to get more people involved? How did she approach people, especially when she was asking for money our other resources? Can teachers give help to the students when they're trying to solve problems? These are some questions that I feel would be helpful to others when trying to implement these ideas. What a wonderful article!
The authors main goal of this article is to promote, as the title suggests, the celebration of mathematics all year 'round. She talks about how her school has cultivated a love of math, in particular the number pi, all because she started celebrating pi day, March 14, every year. Through hard work, generous donations, and personal sacrifices the author was able to extend her pi day celebrations to involve a wider range of students and other faculty members. Events, such as a Monopoly tournament, Halloween themed story problems, and a Valentines Day Love of Mathematics contest, are now a regular part of the school's yearly schedule. Getting students involved in the voluntary events can be difficult, but the draw of prizes such as a graphing calculator, 5 x 5 x 5 Rubik's cube, trophies, and other gifts, especially in a lower income area, is a great way to encourage participation. The article ends stating the fact that due to the implementation of events such as these, the students at this school have had much higher scores in statewide tests and have a greater desire to participate in mathematical discoveries.
I feel that this article hit its main goal right on the head. After reading, I am now quite excited to try some of these ideas once I start teaching. I can see how there would be difficulties getting other faculty/staff members involved, but I'm sure that with time it could happen. One thing that I feel would be nice would be a follow-up article on how to get other people excited about it. What other ideas could work to get more people involved? How did she approach people, especially when she was asking for money our other resources? Can teachers give help to the students when they're trying to solve problems? These are some questions that I feel would be helpful to others when trying to implement these ideas. What a wonderful article!
I actually got to read this article last time, and I feel like you did a very good job of summarizing the article! You definitely stuck to the ideas that she presented in the paper. It was also well written, good job.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a good job at keeping it professional throughout. The structure was also good, you had a main sentence and followed through with that idea.
The one thing that I think would have been fun to read are what are some of the activities that she did with the students? If she continued it year round how did she connect it to the times since there is only one pi day?
Overall, great job!
Bibliography feedback: remove "Pages"
ReplyDeleteI thought that the summary paragraph was very strong. You start with a topic sentence that describes the main point of the article, and then you do a nice job of supporting and developing this main point in the rest of the paragraph. I liked the level of detail. It helped me get a sense of the many different ways that the school encouraged mathematics all year long.
It was difficult for me to identify a topic sentence for the second paragraph. Also, while I can infer your stance toward the main idea, I would have appreciated a topic sentence that explicitly stated your stance. There are many different ideas in the second paragraph, and this paragraph could have been stronger if it had a topic sentence that tied these ideas together.
You hit all the main points, and you were easy to follow throughout the paragraph. I did feel like I wanted more on the explanation/reason behind her idea. Throughout the summary the reader learns why have this idea but I would have liked to have it all together for better understanding. Great job overall!
ReplyDeleteI thought that you did a great job of presenting a main point from the article and sticking with that. Your presentation of information was easily understood and although I haven't read the article, I did feel like the information was concise enough to understand what I needed to know. I know it was just a brief overview but I was left wondering if there were any specific examples in the article of what exactly they did on one of these math days.
ReplyDelete