Week 5 Blog

1. What was the presentation about and to whom did you present it? My presentation was an introductory lesson to the concept of patterns. It was meant for a kindergarten class. I presented it to my own children, who are in 1^st, 3^rd and 4^th grades, to get their feedback.

2. Of which item in your presentation are you the most proud? I’m not sure what I would choose as something that makes me the most proud. I tried to make it very simple and accessible for a young audience, so there is nothing really amazing. I suppose I’m pleased with the simplicity of it. It made clear sense to my first grader, and she is around the target audience age.

3. What might you do differently if you could create the presentation again? I thought it would take more time to go through than it did, but it went pretty quickly. I would probably add a little more to it next time. Although, being with a large class would probably add more discussion time at each slide than I had with a small, older group than my intended audience.

4. How did your students respond to the presentation? My first grader was my primary target. She liked that I had used Thanksgiving pictures and animal pictures to create patterns. She thought that it was fun. She was unsure at first about my number pattern, though – she wanted to call it a 1, 2, 3 pattern and not A, B, C. That would possibly be another thing I would do differently for this introductory lesson.

5. Do you have any new ideas or thoughts on how to use PowerPoint with your students in the future? I’d like to incorporate it into the smart boards we have at school so that students could manipulate the graphics and drag them to make their own patterns on the board.