Private Universe Project in Mathmatics

While viewing video 1 of the Private Universe videos, I immediately related to the students in the study. Like Dana and Stephanie, I would usually take a visual route to solving a problem such as drawing pictures. As I progressed in my school career, I could often solve problems similar to the ones in the video by drawing pictures but I had trouble relating my drawings to mathematical operations. While watching this video, I could not help but notice that as the mathematical reasoning of the students developed, so did there social skills enabling them to work together better. As the students worked through the tasks presented to them, there was almost an excitement that could be seen. The students didn't think of what they were doing as work. The shirt/pants task as well as the tower task brought into play two things that kids generally enjoy doing, drawing and building. It was also interesting to hear the students reflect on their experiences in different types of math classes. Memories of math class in the lower grade levels seemed very positive in comparison to their experiences in 9th grade math. These finding prove significant because I do agree that students typically do not remember much of what they learned several years prior in school. The fact that these students did remember the shirt/pants activity and the tower activity tells me that there was a genuine deep level of learning taking place.