Week 6 Activities

This weeks' activities fell within the same realm as most weeks. I started with our reading, which centered around two rather distinct types of teaching technology implementation. I enjoyed reading about Type 2, which centered around a more broad, complex style of tech-ed where the student is let loose to make discoveries about mathematical concepts with the guidance of the teacher.
I then moved on to my TI-Nspire activities. I know that my module will be due soon enough, so I wanted to try to find some worthwhile activities that I can implement into mine. I came across a total of five new activities which I feel will be useful in my Geometry module and that I think Joe Kerwin will require for his module to go smoothly. I will meet with him in the coming weeks to make sure that they are what both he and I need.
The real difference this week was the creation of rubrics by which to grade and evaluate the worth of online mathematical lessons. I thought this task was very interesting, mainly due to it's future worth. I will undoubtedly need to judge the quality of lesson plans as a future teacher. The main criteria I chose by which to judge these lessons were: the quality of group interaction, the lesson's ability to interest or relate to the student, the effectiveness of conceptual conveyance, and the ease of immediate and effective assessment. While I feel there are many other categories by which to judge a lesson's worth, I feel that these are very effective.
In truth, this reminds me a bit of my post last week. I commented that the most important skill I am gaining from this course is my ability to judge the worth of new technology, but now I feel that it's more than that. This newest assignment had me learning to judge the effectiveness of specific math lessons, and without these skills, I doubt I would ever become a teacher of any real value. I am therefore greatly appreciative for the opportunity to exercise my talents in this area.