A Rational Reflection About My Ratio-based Presentation

                This past week had been one of the most interesting weeks I have had since enrolling in teachers college, specifically in regards to my “becoming a math teacher” journey. I had the task of creating a 8-10 minute lesson for my colleagues in my math class, on the topic of ratio’s. I must admit that when I began the process of putting together my lesson and presentation, I was very nervous. There is defiantly something different when you compare getting in front of colleagues to getting in front of students when conducting a lesson. I have never been shy while in front of a crowd, but because I was getting ready to essentially teach them a subject that I have never been that successful with, I was slightly nervous.

                It was not until I laid out how exactly I was going to teach ratio is when I became comfortable with what I was doing. What helped most was relating to what we have been working on a weekly basis, that is, learning how to teach math in a completely different way compared to how I was taught. With this idea being in my mind, I decided to gear my activity towards Grade 6 students and structure it in a way that would emulate that grades general introduction to ratios by focusing on proportional geometry through the lens of ratios. I also made the commitment to include simple, real-life scenarios while I introduced the topic, scenarios that if those kids were actually going to be in the class, would be very relate-able for them. I decided that my lesson would start with a short presentation that introduced not only the definition of ratios, but  I wanted to include two examples that simply explained what a ratio is as well as how they can apply to comparing two similar geometric shapes. The other half of my activity was based on a worksheet I developed (which can be seen in the image below) that consisted of 5 questions that asked students to explore ratios by comparing similar shapes.

An Image displaying my worksheet for my presentation 

                I can honestly say that I values this assignment greatly for many reasons. Primarily, I now believe that by making sure I am prepared, I can confidently say that I will be able to teach more than just a 10 minute math lesson. This was actually the first presentation I have had to make this year, so not only was it refreshing to get it out of the way, based on the fact that it was in my math class has made me even more confident and excited to be able to teach lessons in the future. This assignment also introduced me to lesson planning, albeit it was on a small scale, I value the experience greatly. While putting together my assignment, I noticed that both the curriculum documents and our text “Making Math Meaningful to Canadian Students, K-8”, obviously included what topics should be specifically introduced but also identified key mistakes and misconceptions students have when dealing with Ratio, percent and proportion. These key items the focused on helped e improve my lesson but also made me think that in addition to knowing the best way’s to teach students math, educators must also be aware of common mistakes and misconceptions students have in order to avoid them and strategize how to help students who are showing signs of struggling.

                My presentation went very smoothly, and I enjoyed my time in front of a class while teaching math. That is a sentence that I would have never thought would come out of my math just 2 short months ago. This week I made great steps towards becoming confident in my ability to teach math in the future. I look forward on continuing my education when it comes to math, but also telling you all about what I will be learning in the future as well!

Thanks for reading!