Working Together To Develop a Math Environment

This is a late post for yesterday, Thursday, May 17.

Since we had thought about different math problems that we could possibly teach in Second Life on Wednesday, we started to work on a teaching different facts about a circle. Since we were on orientation island, we decided to use the circle that you land in as soon as you are dropped off after registration. We had the avatar/human walk from one point on the circle through the center of the circle to another point on the opposite side of circle to illustrate diameter. We also made the avatar walk from the center of the circle to a point on the circle to illustrate radii and walk around the whole circle to illustrate circumference. We took pictures from different angles as well as video to illustrate what we had done.

We also yesterday got a much clearer understanding of what we were expected to produce in our lessons for the teachers and the kids. We are learning to work as a team in developing these lessons. This process, I think, actually mirrors how we should try and teach a bunch of students on how to go about solving a math problem. Like Marcus said in his blog, we have figured out what each of our strengths are. I think once we start building on TC Island, then our understanding of exactly how we can construct math problems best visually in Second Life, will really start to evolve.