After today's class I am really thinking about how I can't know what mathematics students are actually going to need to know in their lives. But I do know I can help them practice mathematical thinking, that I can help this thinking be transferable across the great technologies that are constantly coming about, and help give them the self-confidence that they are mathematical thinkers that can and should use these new technologies for the betterment of their own lives and others'. For example, if they can use a variety of programs to make a histogram, understand and analyze a histogram in meaningful ways, then making a perfect histogram by hand won't be of the utmost importance.
If in the not-so-distant future everyone has cell-phone probes to understand the world around them, will we be assessing if their understandings are logical? With more technology, will mathematics assessments and materials be less hands-on with the real world or just more integrated? For example, we worked with the shapes on a screen this afternoon, this is hands-on, right? Collecting our own data and analyzing it with technology, that makes it all very "real-world" for students, right?
As for implications for classroom practice, my thoughts from class today will help me keep my own reality-check for what students really could find useful in knowing and being able to do in their lives. How will I keep perceived mathematical limitations off and away from every individual - probably by guiding them through mathematical practices with dynamic technology that keeps them as mathematically dynamic as the technology that will hopefully always be viewed as individuals' personal tools.
If in the not-so-distant future everyone has cell-phone probes to understand the world around them, will we be assessing if their understandings are logical? With more technology, will mathematics assessments and materials be less hands-on with the real world or just more integrated? For example, we worked with the shapes on a screen this afternoon, this is hands-on, right? Collecting our own data and analyzing it with technology, that makes it all very "real-world" for students, right?
As for implications for classroom practice, my thoughts from class today will help me keep my own reality-check for what students really could find useful in knowing and being able to do in their lives. How will I keep perceived mathematical limitations off and away from every individual - probably by guiding them through mathematical practices with dynamic technology that keeps them as mathematically dynamic as the technology that will hopefully always be viewed as individuals' personal tools.
