Turning Numbers into Pictures in the Elementary Classroom
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Turning Numbers into Pictures in the Elementary Classroom "I am glad jat you got to be her [I am glad that you got to be here]." The words were carefully printed by an eight-year-old girl on pink notebook paper and handed to me after I finished a lesson on making graphs. There were hugs and thank-you's and lots of smiles. After a math lesson, you ask? Yes, after a math lesson. I began the morning with the first of the three third-grade classes by printing my name across the chalkboard, introducing myself, and telling the students where I worked and what I do in my job. After a few minutes, I directed thetopictothe subject of the day's math lesson: graphs. As part of my work in the Engineering Economic Evaluations Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), I generate a variety of charts and graphs. Holding up a newspaper, I asked the students, "Does anyone read the newspaper?" Nearly all students raised their hands, so I continued, "What is your favorite section?" I called on eight to ten students, who described favorite sections. I then held the newspaper up again, fully open so everyone could see the entire front page, and asked, "What portion of this page is the most interesting?" Every student I called on mentioned one of the photographs on the front, so I then asked, "Which draws your attention more? Pictures or words?" "Pictures!" they all answered at once (momentarily forgetting to raise their hands and be called on). Now it was time to tell the students the lesson's objective: "Today, we're going to turn numbers into pictures." I showed several examples of tables of numbers and graphs from the newspaper and from my office. "Which is more interesting?" "Which is easier to understand?" The graphs, of course. Ten minutes had passed since I had written my name on the chalkboard. Now we were ready to work. As I talked with the students about how useful graphs were in a variety of situations, I walked up and down the rows of desks handing out copies of a worksheet I had made. On the sheet were rows of empty boxes with an axis label printed across one side of the paper. I continued talking and explaining the task at hand as I passed out snack-sized bags of M&Ms [NOTE: Before passing out any food products, check with the teacher and students for food allergies or restrictions!]. Less than fifteen minutes later, twenty-six colorcoded bar graphs were finished. The classroom teacher and I checked each graph before the student was allowed to "consume the data."
The students were visibly proud of their graphs. My instructions for completing the task had been minimal: I showed them a completed worksheet that I had done from my own bag of M&Ms, and I asked them to count their M&Ms and color their bar graphs with crayons that matched the colors of the candy. The students used a variety of approaches to sorting, counting, and recording—but that's good. These students learned much more than how to count M&Ms and color in a bar graph. Each student had the chance to analyze a problem, develop an approach to solving it, and
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