By-election and Early Childhood Education

This blog entry is by Rachel Zheng

MAT150 BSc06 Wheelock College / SEED Institute Entry 2

Sample Test Item

Practice for Test on Saturday

Ms Mitra is preparing small gift packs for the children in her class.

Each pack consists of
- three pencils
- a ruler
- five pieces of milk candies

She already has a large box of 50 pencils and 100 pieces of milk candies.
She has access to any number of rulers she needs.

Task (a) [5 points]
Work out the largest number of gift packs Ms Mitra can make.

Task (b) [5 points]
Make a sketch of a figure that can be folded into a box to hold the pencils, ruler and milk candies.
State the assumptions you make and label the dimensions.

Task (c) [5 points]
Name or describe the problem-solving heuristics you used to solve the 'problem'.
Explain why the task is a problem to a primary-level child.

Task (d) [5 points]
Explain how this task can be modified for it to be suitable for K2 children.

Each task can be completed in about 15 minutes.

MAT150 BSc06 Wheelock College / SEED Institute Entry 1

Welcome to the course on mathematical problem solving with extension to other domains!

You must have received the course information by now and should be doing the pre-course task.
Please submit this during class on 29th October 2012.

Other than that, there is no other preparation you need to make except to come to class and participate in the problem-solving process and distil some pedagogical principles in teaching problem solving to children in the domain of numeracy and other domains.

See you in class.



Children did some artwork after learning about Great Fire 1666 that happened in London. This is at a school in London. Students created buildings using straws and coloured paper. What problems can students solve as they are preparing to create their art piece? There is always problem-solving opportunity in all the activities that children do.



Development of Numeracy for Early Childhood Education

This course was organized by Ministry of Education, Singapore.

EAI Education website shows different manipulatives available for the learning of numeracy.

Day 1

ECM101 3 September 2012 from Jimmy Keng

Day 2

SEED Institute EDU330 BSc06/2012 Post 4 Blogging

You must have the following blog entries, at least. The first entry to document your pre-course reading. The first day of class entry on what you found interesting. You also need to share one thing that you have read about whole numbers in the textbook. Do not forgot that you need to also include one entry on technology. The reflection blog is on three things you learned and two questions that you still have.

The course has ended but the learning continues even as you work with your friends on the literature - maths tasks plus your fieldwork for the final assignment.

Please tidy up your notebook (submit with final assignment). And if you are absent on any day, please do the required make-up work (see Post 2).

Take a bit of time to vote for your favourite class activity.

SEED Institute EDU330 BSc06/2012 Post 3 Quiz 1-3

Quiz 1 comprised two items related to teaching of ordinal numbers.

Quiz 2 comprised a series of math trail activities on various measurement, geometry and statistics topics.

This was Quiz 3.

Write word problems that can be solved by doing 3/4 divide by 2 and 2 divided by 3/4.

On the days you are absent please complete the necessary make-up work (see Post 2) and submit them with the final assignment.

SEED Institute EDU330 BSc06/2012 Post 2 Information on Quiz

In Post 1 or the first post for this class, I have shown a photograph of how students have made a mural using square sheets of paper. A content-related quiz task could require you to find the number of sheets of square paper needed for that mural. You will be asked to give more than one way to arrive at an answer. You may also be given an extension task based on the basic task. A pedagogy-related quiz task could require you to explain why a child respond in the way that he or she did. Sample Task Jon wrote 4 during independent written work where there is a picture of a box of 10 sweets and a tray showing 3 sweets. Suggest Jon's misconception. Describe one teaching strategy in teaching counting to 20. Please come punctually in order to have the opportunity to complete the quiz. Please drop your response to each day's quiz by 6.10 p.m. for it to be graded. You may also complete the quiz during the break (if you are late for class) or at home (if you are absent for a day). These will be graded but some credit will be taken off the final score. Please submit all responses by Saturday's class. There is no Quiz on Monday and Saturday. If you are absent on any day, please drop me an e-mail message. You are also required to complete a make up task which is essentially a two-page answer to the key questions for each session. The key questions are in the Course Information. Please submit these as Appendix to your Final Assignment.