B300
Individual Reflection:
I’m going to be completely honest in that the community walk was a bit awkward for me to do at
first. Not too long along, I came back from an amazing study abroad experience in Ghana. I got
to work, bond, and build relationships with so many Ghanaian people, including the children. I
taught at a private school for one week, and we also got to do community service at an
orphanage near the slums of Accra. Hence, my mindset was all about Ghana, and developing
nations, and it was hard saying goodbye to the children and leaving the schools. Fast-forward to
a few weeks later, I am now placed in the XXX School District at North Star Elementary. I was
experiencing extreme reverse culture shock, and the school environment was a 180 degree
difference from the poor school setting that I was teaching at once before. Nevertheless, when
Jess and I decided not to walk with the kids and do interviews instead, I felt awkward. We were
going up to random people asking what children around the area like to do or partake in after
school. Some people were questioning us on why we were asking them these questions, and we
then had to explain that we were students at the University of SiteB studying to become teachers,
and so forth. After the interviews and the exploring around the town of Hockessin, we
discovered and found the infamous Woodside Creamery, which was literally a mile away from
the school. After analyzing our data (which indicated that the creamery was the famous spot both
children and parents to go), and finding the location, we decided to incorporate the creamery into
the community engagement project. Since it was extremely close to the school and it was very
popular, we felt that many of our students were familiar with it. In addition, if that was not the
case for all of our students, we knew that ice cream was a universal thing in their world in that
they have seen, taste, and know about ice cream. Nevertheless, this was something that all of our
students could relate to, even if they have not been to the specific creamery. When interviewing
not only James, but several students in the class (including our co-op), soccer was the most
popular sport that the children played in, both boys and girls. Nonetheless, with all of the
information that we received and compiled, we designed our task to state the following:
“Your soccer team that has 11 players goes to the creamery after winning the final game. Each
player gets 3 scoops of ice cream. Some of the flavors they get are chocolate, cotton candy, and
cookies n cream. How many scoops of ice cream did the team get in all?”
It was interesting relating this to mathematical terms, because honestly, before doing this project,
I was more narrow-minded in terms of how to teach and incorporate math to students. I had more
fear of teaching math as a whole, hence I was caught up in my own worries, not focusing on
different teaching strategies. Now, WHEREVER I go, I see and think completely different in
terms of teaching, and teaching successfully. Everywhere I go, I always think now if I can relate
that situation into a math or science, social studies, or even reading. It was just so amazing to me
that bringing the community and the students’ lives into your teaching can make such a dramatic
change on how the child approaches and learns the lesson. When doing the case study project,
just changing the name in the word problem to James’ best friend changed his output on how he
solved the problem because he was more engaged and excited that his best friend’s name was in
the world problem; hence, he wanted to solve it as quickly and correctly as possible with full
excitement and positive attitude.
1. There are so many benefits in terms of teaching this style of math to students. As
mentioned in many other assignments for this semester, most students in our country
have a negative persona of math. When you have a negative approach or stance on
something, the outcome is usually negative, hence many children find math to be
challenging, difficult, boring, and non-relevant to their lives. When you can relate to
something, your understanding of it becomes much better, and that is what this style of
math does. When you incorporate your students’ communities, backgrounds, interests,
cultures, and more, they become more interested in math because it is relatable. In
addition, if they can relate to what they are learning in math, students can then realize
how important math is in the real world, and their perception of math being just a school
subject will slowly but surely change. Also, when this occurs, we teachers may have a
better time teaching math because we receive more and positive output from our students.
2. The main challenge here is being able to relate math to every single student that is in your
classroom. If you are teaching a lesson based on a cultural background, that may be
challenging in that not every student may be able to relate to that culture or example that
you used in your math lesson. Nevertheless, the challenge is being able to relate your
community based lesson with every student. For those students that are not able to relate
to the problem, they may feel left out, get upset, and not engage in the math lesson, which
is not the purpose of the community engagement task. Another challenge that may arise
from this is being able to reach out and make those connections with your students. We
as future teachers have to make the extra effort in branching out to our students that are
completely different from us in terms of backgrounds, cultures, and communities. If I
have a Spanish-speaking child in my class, how will I make that connection if I cannot
even speak Spanish? Hence, there are some challenges, but as future teachers, we will
overcome them, and when we do, the rewards will certainly out way the challenges.