As we discussed earlier, Bruner believes that the act of learning includes three almost simultaneous
processes: Acquisition of new information, Transformation, and Evaluation.
In order to include these principles in my presentation, I began by presenting the following math problem:
A student is hosting a study group for 14 people and plans on serving pizza. The student is planning on each person eating 2 slices of pizza. How much will the pizzas cost for the study group if 1 pizza contains 8 slices and costs $8.00?
I decided to use a pizza party as the scenario rather than using a clinical math problem to begin the math lesson. I did this because the students would be more familiar with this type of situation instead of a "clinical type" scenerio. This allowed for the acquisition of new information as defined by Jerome Bruner. The students would have the opportunity to "refine" their previous knowledge of a calculation problem by using the new method of dimensional analysis.
I first began by informing the students of all of the positive aspects of using dimensional analysis to solve dosage and calculation problems. I then reviewed the mathematical foundation of dimensional analysis by using basic math. This allowed me to use basic math for transformation, or "to fit the new task" of solving problems using dimensional analysis. Starting out by reviewing the basic math components of dimensional analysis was similiar to Bruner's idea of transformation. Because this method helped the students better understand this new method of calculating dosage and calculation problems, I was fostering transferability.
The students were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of using dimensional analysis to solve the problem. I instructed them to attempt to calculate the problem using whatever method they preferred. Most students were use to ratio to proportion, but after learning dimensional analysis, most of them felt that it was just as easy, or easier than ratio to proportion. Every student was able to accurately calculate the above question using dimensional analysis.
processes: Acquisition of new information, Transformation, and Evaluation.
In order to include these principles in my presentation, I began by presenting the following math problem:
A student is hosting a study group for 14 people and plans on serving pizza. The student is planning on each person eating 2 slices of pizza. How much will the pizzas cost for the study group if 1 pizza contains 8 slices and costs $8.00?
I decided to use a pizza party as the scenario rather than using a clinical math problem to begin the math lesson. I did this because the students would be more familiar with this type of situation instead of a "clinical type" scenerio. This allowed for the acquisition of new information as defined by Jerome Bruner. The students would have the opportunity to "refine" their previous knowledge of a calculation problem by using the new method of dimensional analysis.
I first began by informing the students of all of the positive aspects of using dimensional analysis to solve dosage and calculation problems. I then reviewed the mathematical foundation of dimensional analysis by using basic math. This allowed me to use basic math for transformation, or "to fit the new task" of solving problems using dimensional analysis. Starting out by reviewing the basic math components of dimensional analysis was similiar to Bruner's idea of transformation. Because this method helped the students better understand this new method of calculating dosage and calculation problems, I was fostering transferability.
The students were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of using dimensional analysis to solve the problem. I instructed them to attempt to calculate the problem using whatever method they preferred. Most students were use to ratio to proportion, but after learning dimensional analysis, most of them felt that it was just as easy, or easier than ratio to proportion. Every student was able to accurately calculate the above question using dimensional analysis.