my blogs
This blog was inspired by a CMC call for articles., an organization that I am a member of. It shares some of the visualizing mathematics strategies I used in my classroom to impact teaching and learning, a technique that is extremely powerful in deepening and extending learning. As a result of this technique and others, 100% of my students were successful in state tests for consecutive years. For me, it is not about the scores, but instead the profound and enduring learning experiences and connections to real-world situations that my students acquired, which translated to great scores. Visualization is defined as the “formation of mental visual images and the act or process of interpreting in visual terms or of putting into visible form” ~ Merriam Webster dictionary. In this definition, it is noted that visualization relates to mental and visible forms. In teaching mathematics to students, both forms of visualization are extremely important and are interconnected; the visible form is profoundly impacted by the mental visual form. Before we can create a visible form, we need to create a profound mental image in our mind. Visualizing mathematics has extensive benefits in teaching and learning mathematics. Some of the benefits explored in this article are those relating to and involving literacy skills, math research and labs, and math conversations. Students develop literacy skills and make deeper inferences and profound connections to cross-curricular and real-life situations when they engage in visualizing mathematics. Incorporating math tasks and math labs that require research deepens visualization in math and creates a plethora of connected mental and visible images. Math talk, student talk or student discussion, however termed, provides students with extensive opportunities to visualize mathematics and create profound visual products. Visualizing Mathematics to Develop Literacy Skills and Make Deeper Real-World Connections Mental Visual to Visible forms (word and pictures)
Visualizing mathematics helps students develop literacy skills when they engage in mental visuals to visible forms of words and pictures to make great inferences and profound connections to real-world concepts in word problems and text. When students engage in mental visualization before they add their thoughts on paper to create a visible product, they make extensive connections to their personal experiences and information becomes even more relevant, meaningful and enduring before it is transferred to a visible form. One technique that is used to help students create a mental visual image is to have them close their eyes after reading a word problem or text and visualize the content. This is a very simple yet powerful strategy that helps students create dynamic mental visual images which they then transfer to visible forms using pictures and words. Some of my students chose to keep their eyes open, and this was allowed as well. In the pictures below, you will see my students’ examples of visible forms, end products of mental visuals that consist of words and pictures. In order to get students to master picture and word visible visualization so it becomes a natural part of their learning, have them work on one word problem or text at a time. Initially, it may take an entire period for students to complete one task/word problem, but it is definitely worth going slow to go fast when developing students’ literacy skills using mental visual to visible forms of pictures and words. |
Cherry-Anne GildharryOn this page, you will find blogs on educational connections and my life's experiences. Ideas, thoughts and views are my own and are not representative of my employers. References/sources used are public articles found on the internet to support my blogs. Archives
April 2024
Categories |