Adam Rodrigues - EDUC 450B Blog

Much like my experience in EDCP 342A, this course helped broaden my perspectives of what it means to be an educator in math and science. I feel like the readings, discussions, and events (such as attending the Reconciling Ways of Knowing talk) provided a rich content base for reflection.  I am now more aware of how math and science teachers can (and arguably, should) incorporate issues of social justice and activism into their teaching. This is something that I have usually avoided in the past because I am not that comfortable with my knowledge level on certain issues or how to integrate it smoothly into the curriculum. I've come to realize though that learning to facilitate appropriate discussion and finding creative ways of making the curriculum relevant are what is necessary. A teacher can't possibly be an expert in everything, but a teacher can always lead meaningful inquiry and discussion in respectful and intelligent ways. Also, I really enjoyed the inquiry project. I fee...

Slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19NSQ-7Ydyjy5Nc81KkO-22_X5BTr6O-9/view?usp=sharing Reflection: Having the opportunity to research an area of personal interest was highly motivating and exciting. The hardest part of the inquiry project for me might have actually been deciding on my research topic and questions because there were so many facets of mathematics and physics education that intrigued me.       Initially, I began reading about promoting conceptual thinking in mathematics through creative question design, but then I stumbled across the vast body of educational research discussing proofs. In fact, after doing some initial reading, I was pretty curious about whether or not incorporating proofs and proving in a secondary mathematics setting could be an effective way to promote conceptual thinking. My literature review affirmed this hypothesis and also described many other benefits that come from the teaching and learning of mathematical proof. At the sam...