Category Archives: 1.1 Social Justice

Doctor Who?

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Time Travel – a Doctor Who-esque phenomenon that has been a fantasy to many for thousands of years. But it turns out that we have been doing it all along. How? You might ask. The answer is simply light, the five-letter word that we all take for granted. Light has been enabling us to see way back in time for ages and ages, literally.

Take the big bang for example. We have learned that we can see right back until a few million years before the Big Bang and it occurred 13.8 BILLION years ago. So how is this possible?

Let us put the universe into perspective: if you were to drive on one straight road around the Earth at its largest circumference, 24,900 miles, at an average on 60 mph it would take 415 hours – 17 and a half days (Quora.com). We are just one planet in our solar system made up of 8 planets in which we are the fifth smallest – Jupiter being the largest at 1120% of our size (universe today.com). Feel small yet? Well our solar system orbits around just one start in our Galaxy – the Milky Way. There are approximately 100,000,000,000 stars in our galaxy. That means we are 1 in 100,000,000,000… feel small now? But that is just a galaxy, galaxies make up our universe – in fact, 100,000,000,000 galaxies make up our universe. This colossal number of stars has intrigues people to put this into perspective, people like Carl Sagan who came to the conclusion that there are in fact more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches and deserts on Earth COMBINED (outerplaces.com)

So now we know roughly just how big our universe is we can now begin to understand why we can see back in time. Because our universe is so exponentially massive, the time it takes for light to be emitted from a source and then to reach a telescope on Earth is astronomical. This distance is measure in light years – the equivalent distance that light travels in one year. So, if a star is millions of miles away that is emitting light we will not see that light until the amount of light years it takes for that light to reach us, therefore we are seeing the light that has been emitted in the past. Between the time it takes for the light to be given off and then to meet our telescope, that star could cease to exist and we would not know until the light no longer reached us, light years later. Hence, we are seeing back in time.

If you wanted to see back in time you don’t need a Tardis, your answer is all in light.

https://www.quora.com/If-you-were-to-drive-around-the-world-how-long-would-it-take

https://www.universetoday.com/36649/planets-in-order-of-size/

https://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/2631-are-there-more-stars-in-the-universe-than-grains-of-sand-on-earth

A Different Way to Learn

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I love maths. I find the subject to be so challenging yet so satisfying that I was able to enjoy my experiences of maths throughout my education. My love of maths began in my Primary 5 class when my teacher provided myself and my classmates an opportunity to learn maths in a different way, through play.

Maths through play is an unconventional method of teaching maths skills according to the old traditions of teaching. Maths has always been perceived and a ‘textbooks open, sum after sum’ subject. This old-fashioned way of teaching leaves children bred and disengaged from one of the most valuable curricular areas. By teaching maths trough play we are opening up the possibilities for all children to be able to work problems out in a way that suits them.

According to the Curricular Guidance for pre-school Education “Play is an effective vehicle for fostering Mathematical concepts and developing positive attitudes to mathematics…” This shows that children will be able to successfully deal with more complex problems through play rather than by traditional methods as they are given the opportunity to discover their own way to solve problems. By teaching maths through play, we are allowing children to enjoy the maths that they are learning. Maths will be less daunting as they are learning in a fun and engaging way.

So why can children learn better through play? “Young children engage in significant mathematical thinking and reasoning in their play – especially if they have sufficient knowledge about the materials they are using – if the task is understandable and motivating if the context is familiar and comfortable” (Scholastic) If a child is more engaged in their learning they are more likely to gain a higher level of understanding. If a child is disinterested in their learning they will not be able to take anything from it, therefore the teacher’s precious time will be wasted.

Rather than delivering content rich lessons we should be delivering valuable, engaging and worthwhile lessons. In order to engage more children, we should be delivering lessons that provide them with opportunities to learn in the best way for them. So, learning maths through play can spark new ideas and enthusiasm for the subject and therefore leave children feeling more engaged and confident.

 

Curricular Guidance for pre-school Education cited in http://www.early-years.org/parents/docs/maths-through-play.pdf

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/math-play-how-young-children-approach-math/

Resource Allocation Workshop

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During our first values workshop the group was split into five tables and each assigned an envelope of resources. The groups were instructed to design something that would help a new student starting at the University of Dundee. Each group pitched their ideas to the remainder of the class and the lecturer. During this our group (group two) noticed that our lecturer seemed to be getting less interested as each group stood up and talked but we thought nothing of this initially.

As the ideas were being pitched it became apparent that not all of the groups had the same amount of resources. For instance, we had various different colours of card, pens, post its, scissors etc, whereas group five had only a few paper clips and some small pieces of paper.

After pitching our ideas each group then made their helpful resource for the new student. Our group made a colour coded personalised timetable as we felt that the timetable was the most difficult aspect to figure out when starting university. Our timetable had a different colour for each module and removable tabs for the classes and events that varied each week. We based the sample timetable on my own as I had the fullest timetable.

In groups, we presented our final design to the rest of the workshop group. Just as the lecturer lost interest in the initial pitching of ideas, she also lost interest as each group presented their resource. It was apparent that the groups presenting later on were feeling unfairly treated.

Finally, Brenda gave our final designs a mark out of 10 and they ranged from group one getting a very high mark to group five getting 1/10. Brenda then went on to explain that she was intentionally acting this way and hoped that none of us were offended.

The workshop taught us that each student should be treated in the same way no matter what their situation is. Just because one person has less to work with does not mean that they deserve less attention or praise. I felt that the workshop was very effective in making us realise that we may act this way unintentionally but we should make an effort to ensure that it does not happen again. All student should be treated as equal to one another.

Welcome to your WordPress eportfolio

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Welcome to your ePortfolio. This is where you will document and share your professional thoughts and experiences over the course of your study at the University of Dundee and beyond that when you begin teaching. You have the control over what you want to make public and what you would rather keep on a password protected page.

The ePortfolio in the form of this WordPress blog allows you to pull in material from other digital sources:

You can pull in a YouTube video:

You can pull in a Soundcloud audio track:

You can upload an image or pull one in from Flickr or any other image sharing site.

Teacher, Lorraine Lapthorne conducts her class in the Grade Two room at the Drouin State School, Drouin, Victoria

You can just about pull in anything that you think will add substance and depth to your writing.