Sept 24th Entrance Slip

When I think about how I would use a garden as a co-teacher particularly in high school math what comes to mind is how the garden could be a tool to answer the question of relevance. I believe many students struggle to grasp the relevance of what they learn in a math class and instead treat the subject as something they simply have to check off of their list of requirements to graduate. This mindset is something that I’m certain is not helpful to learning. I think that curiosity, inquiry and interest are much better motivators for students learning. This is partially because I think that students who want to learn will be much happier doing so. However, it is also because of the more practical reason that “I want to pass grade 10 math” is not verry good motivation for completing an assignment that is only worth 5% of the grade. It seems likely to me that students who are not motivated by curiosity would have a hard time being motivated to learn fundamental concepts at the start of the year and may end up unable to grasp concepts further on in their education. I think it is important for students understanding of math that their motivation for developing that understanding comes from a sustainable place. This is why the question of relevance is so important in a math classroom. It can be easy for students to see math, particularly high school math, as something that has no application to their lives. I believe teaching in a garden could help with that. 

The garden could be used in lessons about transformations, lessons about geometry, about angles, curves, and about trigonometry. All of these topics have visual representations, examples of which could be found in the garden. By using the garden in this way and by creating lessons where students have to seek out the concepts being discussed in nature it could exemplify how math has bearing on real life. The concept of math simply as abstractions is something that many people find challenging and the garden could be used to take math out of the abstract world and to give it a more concrete meaning. I think using the garden as a co-teacher would have the potential to both make your lessons seem more tangible and, in that way, more understandable and to make the content you teach seam more relevant. By adding relevance to math lessons the garden could help students be more motivated and therefore more successful in their learning.