MY INTERVENTION AT THE PRACTICES STAGE

In my practices stage I implemented an intervention proposal about the measurement. For carrying out it I planned several activities on units of measure, using measurement tools, ICT resources… Pupils who developed it were in the 4º year of Primary (9-10 years old).

I started with an initial evaluation to verify what they remembered on the length and the capacity. Later, I introduced the contents through different questions like “if we move towards the left, do we multiply or divide?”

I did a crossword and an alphabet soup. The crossword consisted of ten questions, two were to write the principal units of measure of length and capacity, and the rest were a series of operations that they had to answer in its respective numbers and boxes. Every number had a phrase and there was a missing word (the words that were missing were units of measure). They had to do the calculation, which was in the phrase, to find the unit of measure . The alphabet soup was easier. Learners had to look for units of measure in it. When they find six units of measure that exists in the soup, they related every unit to the object, element or living being that they thought.

Regarding measurement tools, students worked with the measuring tape. In pairs, they chose what object they were going to measure. Later, they measured that object and took notes about how many centimeters it had. Finally, they had to represent that information with another unit of measure. In this way, their relevance is higher because they must be who obtain the information of the activity, analyze it and operate with that information. It is not like in a textbook, where they only have to do calculations. The aim is that they improve their cooperative skills and that they see the whole process of the information: from its extraction up to its analysis and manipulation to obtain results.

Finally, the ICT resources were games on the Internet and Plickers. On the Internet pupils had to prove what unit of measure was most adapted for the object or living being that appeared on the screen. The final day of the intervention I used the app Plickers to review what they learned during the intervention. In pairs, they debated together and gave a response to every question between the options that I provided them. As we can observe in the image, they were questions that they knew. There were both of easy and difficult questions. 

The main goals I pretended were bosting their cooperative skills, their mathematical competence in these contents and their individual concentration. The results were very successful for me, I was so proud of the learners’ engagement and how every activity was carried out without big problems.

DIDACTIC MATERIALS TO LEARN THE CHANGE OF UNITS

The change of units of measure is one of most important learning that Primary students have to internalize when they treat the different magnitudes of measurement. From kilogrames to grames, from metres to centimetres… are several the kinds of changes that students must learn.

In the Andalusian Primary curriculum we can find that it requires this learning throughout the three cycles. For example, in the second cycle (although for the third cycle is valid too) there is a content which says the following: “3.7. Comparación y ordenación de unidades y cantidades de una misma magnitud”. For that reason teacher must get this aim. How to obtain this learning? The methods and techniques come into play in this point. Then I share with you two activities who can be very useful for children.

Firstly, the cube of units. Each face represents each unit of measure. A feasible activity would be giving a series of quantities and ask children to transform them throwing the cube. They should represent the numbers by means of the resultant units. For example, they have the quantity 1.500 litres and throw the dice. The new unit is the kilolitre, so they ought to to divide 1.500 between 1.000.

The second activity consists of pairing quantities which have the same value, represented in different units of measure. For that aim, it is neccesary to design pairs of cards. The cards are upside down and children have to turn two cards. If those two cards shape the relationship between the same quantitative value, they have to leave them face up; if it is the opposite situation, they must to come back to put them upside down. In this way, the teacher can verify if learners know to transform the units keeping the same value. Pupils group in four to carry out the activity, two of them play (they must talk together to guess the pairs) while the others are the ‘referees’ and ‘teachers’ (they have to control that those who are playing don’t cheat and guess the pairs), and viceversa.

I believe these games would be very positive for students to get these procedures in the matter of measurement. In addition, they would acquire other learning like the cooperative skills.

APPS TO LEARN MEASUREMENT

The new techonologies are changing our lifes, and the teaching is not an exception. The methodologies are being modified, and one of those causes are the technological devices. There are different IT resources to learn Mathematics in Primary Education, and the measurement concretely. Three apps to learn measurement are detailed below.

The first application is ‘Cambio unidades’. In it children can practice and improve their abilities regarding the lenght, volumen and mass. They learn all the different units of measure (metres, kilometres, litres, kilogrames, grames…) and what calculation they must do to change it (multiply by 10, divide between 100…). In addition, students can add or subtract two quantities (15 cl + 76 dl, for example). Finally, there is a challenge, in which the app ask questions to calculate mindly (how many half-metres are 8 metres? for instance).

The second has as a name ‘Matemáticas 10 años’. It is an app which treats lots of fields of Mathematics. One of those is the measurement and the change of units. The app requires eight right answers to overcome the game, and there are only ten. In other words, players only have two options to fail. At the third failure, the game is over and players must start again. The style of questions are like this one: A bus travelled 30 km in a hour. At the same speed, hoy many hours will it do in three hours (60.000 m/9.000 m/30.000 m/90.000 m). Players have to choose one of the responses.  

The last game is ‘Matemáticas 7 años’. It is produced by the same creator than the previous one, it only changes the level. There are mini-games on lenght, mass and capacity. The format is the same than ‘Matemáticas 10 años’, a question and a right answer between four possibilities, and there are options to fail (two or three, depending on the mini-game). An example would be: 9 l + 6 ½ l = _ (8 l/15 l/12 l/10 l). As the example shows, the level is minor, logically.

The new technologies provide children new ways to learn measurement at home, reinforcing their knowledge in this field of Mathematics.

THE TANGRAM

The tangram is a game whose origine is Chinese. It is formed by seven poligonal flat pieces, generally made by wood, with which it must create figures without overlaping them. In the early 19th century it was carried over to Europe, and it became very popular in the continent for a time then, and then again during World War I. It is one of the most popular dissection puzles in the world. 

The tangram provides lots of benefits: it promotes the development of intellectual and psychomotor abilities, stimulates the creativity and the formation of abstract ideas, fosters the logical-mathematical intelligence, improves the eye-hand coordination…

There are only thirteen convex shapes matched with the tangram set. Children must take into account, for example, in the equivalence  of several pieces, gathering the two small triangles, learners can build the square, the rhomboid or the medium triangle…

Primary students can play with the tangram to differentiate the area and the perimeter; in this way the would understand that a same area is not equal to the same perimeter. In my practices stage I could observe that misconception, some children believed that two polygons with the same area had the same perimeter, and I had to show them that they were wrong. I gave them an example so that they could understand in a notebook, but the tangram is the best tool in order to solve this problem, in my opinion.

An entertaining activity for any cycle would be to give freedom to learners so that they create the figures they want; thus they foster their imagination and creativity. Once they have formed it, they could measure the perimeter and the area, and they could correct the misconception I have detailed in the previous paragraph.

Playing with they tangram is very enjoyable for Primary children. They can practice and play with a didactic tool in an funny way while they are learning meaningful concepts about the measurement. Without any doubt, a great invention.  

THE ACRE

The acre is an unit to measure the area, used in the agriculture of several countries. Depending on the country and the time, it corresponds to several surfaces, generally between 0,4 and 0,5  hectares.

It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, ​or ¹⁄₆₄₀ of a square mile, and approximately 4.047 m².

The acre was roughly the quantity of land tillable by a yoke of oxen in a day. This explains the acre as the area of a rectangle with sides of length one chain and one furlong. A long, narrow strip of land is more efective to plough than a square plot, since the plough does not have to be turned so often. The word "furlong" itself derives from the fact that it is one furrow long (Acre, s.f.).

The acre is commonly used in a number of current and former Commonwealth countries, like United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In addition, almost all countries of the former British Empire used it, such as Ghana, India or the Caribean islands where agricultural lands is measured in acres.

I understand that it would difficult to Primary students. Those ones who show problems to manage our system will not like the acre because it is more complex. However, it could implement a little activity (third cycle) in which they could go to the playground and measure it with their feet. They would compose small groups, and while one is measuring a side, another could measure the opposite side, and so on. At the end, they would write down the number of feet and, in the classroom, they could present their results with all their classmates. Thus they operate through estimations, not by means of an accurate system, dealing with other measurement models.

References:

Acre (s.f). En Wikipedia. Recuperado el 17 de marzo de 2019 de https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acre

INTRODUCTION

Hello and welcome to my blog! I am Andrés and I am a Primary Education degree student at the University of Málaga. I pretend to learn the measurement in a didactic way; for this reason I will search information to get my aim. In addition, I want to share it with all of you.

Didactic Measure is a blog whose principal aim is to make readers conscious of the influence and the significance of the measurement in our life and to learn to teach it in a different way, through curious methods and a variety of tools and materials and by means of real contexts. The measurement, the statistic, the probability... are very present in our everyday life: in our houses, in the sport, in the society, at the school, in ourselves… In every corner of the world, the measurement and the other sciences are implied. That's the reason why learners must acquire those knowledge. In my opinion, they have to understand what it surrounds them from a mathematical perspective. For that goal, I will describe different methodologies and activities to teach measurement, didactic applications, representations of the measurement and the other sciences in real life, curiosities... 

In the following weeks I will upload several entrances related to these contents and feasible didactic applications. I hope you like it! Come on!