Measurement and Exploring

This week's reading, "Building a Curriculum Around Big Ideas" by Ron Ritchhart talks about the importance of teaching measurement to students. A few teachers in this article are discussing how they should start teaching measurement to students. They want to make sure that they are teaching measurement the correct way. They don't want to just tell the students measurement formulas. They want them to figure out the real life application of measurement so that the students better understand the concept. One teacher, Carl, talks about how measurement is used in the first place and in the real world (Ritchhart). I think that this is a good place to start when thinking about teaching measurement. The students need to understand why they are doing and learning measurement in the first place. I think that students learn more if they find meaning behind what they're doing, instead of just plugging in formulas and spitting out numbers. Another teacher in this conversation while talking about measuring and using comparisons to measure says, "comparing is still measuring. You're finding out something about the two objects. If you're comparing to see who is taller, then you're dealing with height" (Ritchhart) I think that this person has a good point and comparing two different things is one way to measure. I think that students at a young age would enjoy doing this type of measurement. They would be able to relate it to their own lives, and easily be able to see the importance of measuring height. Teachers could also incorporate teaching about growing and the importance of being a healthy person in order to grow and be strong. Thompson and Lambin's article "Concrete Materials and Teaching for Mathematical Understanding" talks about the importance of using concrete materials to help students understand math concepts. I think that measuring people and comparing heights would be a fun thing for students to do and it would be good to use concrete materials, in this case, people. Students could also use people and peers to measure weight and lengths of body parts such as arms or feet, as well as height. I think that students using concrete materials when learning about measurement will definitely help them understand the importance of learning measurement. I think students should start off with measurement by doing activities such as the one I described. I feel like students will understand the importance and real life application of measurement by exploring for themselves by using concrete objects, making it more important to them.