The Topic April 12, 2010

The title for this unit is called Understanding Global Poverty Through Numbers. One important concept in the mathematics section of grade 6 curriculum requires that students understand number concepts; this includes large numbers up to 10 digits, decimals, and even percentages. To make these numbers more meaningful for students I have chosen to relate them to global poverty; a topic that is extremely prevalent in all forms of our media.

Living and teaching in a country that is as stable as ours is a luxury that many of us take for granted. This mathematics unit seeks to introduce students to the global poverty issues around them, and to help make sense of some of the startling and unfathomable statistics that they hear about. Knowing that 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day, or that 121 million children worldwide do not attend school are complex facts to comprehend. With this unit I hope to teach students about key numerical concepts, while at the same time helping them to put these alarming numbers into perspective so that they can appreciate their very blessed lives.

The unit will rely heavily on technology by asking the students to use laptops and a SMARTboard, however, will also be based on various forms of print media as well.

Meet the Class

While planning this unit I had a certain classroom setting in mind that I tried to picture myself teaching in. The school is private and is located in an upper-class suburban and English neighborhood in Toronto. The reason for selecting this type of school is that this is the kind of school setting that I grew up in myself, and the type of atmosphere that I hope to one day teach in.

The age group that I had in mind while planning this unit is a cycle 3 grade 6 class. Due to the upper-class neighborhood in which the school is located, the classroom would be well equipped with resources. This includes laptops for each student, a SMARTboard at the front of the class, and access to the internet as well as internet subscription resources.

For this project I envisioned a small class of only about 20 students who were all very comfortable with technology. Both teacher and student depend heavily on their laptops, and use the SMARTboard for most lessons. They also rely heavily on the internet for things such as research, projects, and web based activities. Each of the students is confident when it comes time to using any Microsoft office outlet, as well as internet based software such as Voicethread or WordPress.

Materials

While each lesson has its own specific list of materials that need to be used, there are several important things that will be needed and used throughout the unit. These include:

• Access to laptops (at least 1 per pair)
• Access to the internet
• A SMARTboard
• Ability to use an common open space on the last day of the unit (ex. a gym or library)