Week One Reflections

What does the term early childhood mathematics mean to you?

To me, early childhood mathematics is the part of a young child's education that builds a foundation for all later logical and mathematical reasoning. Early childhood mathematics involve students interacting with numbers and their relationships. It also involves learning to analyze the relationships among other entities. This includes comparing, organizing, and categorizing by different qualities. This foundation is essential for a child''s future ability in mathematics. It is imperative that children build this foundation along with confidence in this area.

Key Points from Chapter 1

Chapter One discusses the best strategies to teaching early childhood education. Children learn by construction their own knowledge, therefore it is important to provide opportunities for students to build this knowledge. The more connections that children can make with their existing knowledge, the more meaningful the new learning will be. This is an important concept for teachers to remember when planning activities. Connecting new information to something that is important to the child will make it easier for them to learn and understand the concept. What the word "understanding" means in mathematics is also an important thing for teachers to keep in mind. Understanding does not mean that a child must be able to always come to the correct answer. Understanding means that the child knows the process of how to solve a problem and why this process works.

The classroom setting is very important in providing the optimal learning experience for our students. Children need to have the opportunity to work with one another and they need to be active in their learning. This should be taken into consideration when planning. Math should be taught by way of problem-based tasks. These types of problems allow students to use their own knowledge to problem solve and work on finding a solution. These types of lessons promote the process of learning math over the correct answer. Problem-Based tasks also allow for authentic assessment. The teacher can observe, interview, and collect data from these problems. The students should be encouraged to write, draw, and explain each step. This is much deeper thinking than simple skill practice.

Problem-based tasks allow for variations to meet the diverse needs of the learners in our classrooms. They can have multiple solutions, different levels of sophistication, and different questions for different learners. These problem-based tasks also allow teachers to write problems that suit exactly what they want to address. Again, these assessments are a great way to provide fair grading and feedback. Teachers can see what the children have learned and base grades off of rubrics that show progress.