As a future teacher having access to different resources will become extremely helpful when developing lesson plans, and can also be used for finding new ideas/examples that you can include in your teaching. Youcubed is a new resource that a future teacher or a parent can use to make reference to for mathematics. Youcubed is a non-profit organization that provides FREE Kindergarten to Grade 12 resources as well as professional development for teachers and parents.
After taking some time to explore Youcubed, I found several things that surprised me and things that also intrigued me;
One for example is in the article, Twelve Steps To Increase Your Child's Math Achievement and Make Math Fun, it says that you should not call your child smart because it can be damaging to the child. This surprised me because in my opinion I would want to be praised when I do good, and to be told that I am smart. It improves your self confidence, and even when you do fail and make mistakes it should not make you feel less smart because you got it wrong, everyone makes mistake. Which is what I would explain to my child when the situation occurred and they did not do their best or received a bad mark. It doesn't make them less smart, it gives them an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and to try again.
Another thing I found surprising was that they encourage teachers never to time children or encourage faster work. All through my school years, we were given deadlines on math assignments and homework to be completed, as well as regularly scheduled tests after each unit that we were expected to write in an assigned period of time. Now there is research that shows pressuring students like this can result in math anxiety. I agree that for many students feeling pressured causes them to freeze up and do poorly on exams. It will be interesting to see how much students may possibly improve if the stress of being pressured is no longer a factor in the classroom environment.
I liked how this website lists various links to games that you can use in your classroom for every grade level. Like the Glow-in-the-Dark Geometry idea, it lists the overall outcome of the activity, supplies needed, how to set up the classroom, and how to go about conducting the activity. Activities like this that are all planned out and ready to teach would be beneficial for teachers who need to think quickly on their feet for a new activity, or for a substitute teacher to follow if they need to prepare a lesson on short term notice.
There is also many more games that are available for a classroom teacher to use that they can include in their math learning center or for the students to work on once they have their assigned work completed. Also since this website is free parents can access these games and do them with their child outside of school to further help their math development.
Overall, once Youcubed gets fully operational I think it will turn out to be an excellent resource about mathematics and different approaches to take towards teaching. It is definitely something I will refer back too when I'm stuck for ideas or need help!
*For anyone who is interested in this website click here Youcubed *
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