Alex Heinrich
Solving Math problems in Math Class
Welcome to my math reflection. Here you can learn about my growth in math class this year. My claim is that I have grown in my ability to understand and solve linear relationships, and ratios. We write reflections to reflect on a growth topic that we feel we have grown in the most. I like to write reflections because it is fun and it challenges me and makes me want to do more. Before I start with my first artifact I want to tell you where I was before and after we learned ratios. Before we learned about ratios, to me it was like she was speaking a foreign language. It was very confusing and I didn’t understand. So I went to Mrs. Vazquez and asked for help and over the course of about 2 weeks, I became more fluent in ratios language. After the unit I can understand ratios and solve them in no time.
My first artifact is the ratios unit test. This comes from ratios unit in math class. The ratios unit was where we learned all about ratios and things that relate to ratios. The reason we were taking the unit test is because Mrs. Vazquez wanted to see if here teaching strategies were working. This proves growth because I have a 24/25 on the test. The purpose of this artifact is to prove that I can understand math problems and solve them correctly. The final product was a unit test with a 24/25. That means that I had to understand ratios and proportions. One term I learned while doing this unit was ratio. Ratio is the comparison of 2 numbers. Ex: 6:3 or 6/3 in fractions. Another thing I learned was a proportion which is a comparison of 2 ratios. Ex: 6:3=4:2. These are very important in math because they have an influence on how we do fractions. Fractions are when you put 2 numbers in between a line to compare them. Fractions are important to math because they help us see where we are whether that is good or bad. So now you are probably thinking how does this prove anything? Well this proves growth because it is a 24/25 on a test filled with challenging problems that we had to solve. So what? Well my claim is that I have grown in my ability to understand and solve linear relationships, and ratios. This means if I got a 24/25 then that can surely mean that understand and can solve linear relationships, and ratios. This artifact is important to my claim because it helps show how I have solved these problems and how I got better at solving them. But the score doesn’t prove it all. Question 1 had a table listing the number of Olympic gold medals and total medals. Question was the ratio of United States gold medals to Russia gold medals was about ____ to 1. Russia had 24 medals and the USA had 46. Divide 46/24=1.91. Now you have to round the numbers to the tenths place. So 1.91 rounds down to 1.90 or 1.9. That is one example of a different way the unit test proves growth. Now for the 2nd artifact.
My 2nd artifact is a page in my notebook when we learned about linear relationships. The linear unit was all about linear relationships and things that are related to them. The page is 100. This page shows growth because it has step by step instructions on how to see if something is linear in a table, and graph. This artifact came the math class unit. Linear means that the line on a graph is straight. Ex: (0, 2), (5, 10) if they were to points next to each other on the graph, because the points are multiples of each other. Slope means the difference of the rise to run on a graph or table or equation. Ex: if my rise is 3 and my run is 2, then I divide 3 by 2 which gives me 1.5, therefore my slope is 1.5. Rise and run are comparing the difference between 2 y-axis numbers and 2 x-axis numbers. We find the difference between the 2 and call that rise and run. Dividing the rise by the run gives you the slope. Now to prove that I have grown to you I can tell you how to see if something is linear in a table, and graph. First up table, 1st step look at the difference in between numbers. Step 2 find the difference in between the variables. Step 3 divide the independent variable change by the dependent variable change (difference between dependent variable of one point to another). Next is graph. 1st step identify 2 different points that are next to each other on the line. Step 2 find differences between the x-values and y-values. Step 3 divide the change in the y-values by the x-values.
So to wrap things up, I am going to summarize this for you. My claim was that I grew in my ability to understand and solve linear relationships, and ratios. This means that if I am able to get a 24/25 on a unit test and get my math work done efficiently then I can solve this math content in ways that help me figure out math problems. Using these mathematical artifacts they will help me become a future pilot that I want to be because to be a pilot means that you have to be able to understand math so you can calculate things. Ex: fuel, weight, flight altitudes. Thank you for your time.
