Monday, July 11, 2011

New Findings With Excel

Today while I was working on some data using Excel I found a way to accomplish what I wanted probably 3 times faster! I can't believe all of the things Excel can do. I've always thought I was pretty good at Excel but after learning all these things at Allen I've realized I hardly knew anything!

These new findings today made me think of teaching. In the classroom students are shown how to do something to complete the task. Denise just gave me a project and I was expected to explore with Excel and "figure out" how to do it on my own. I then thought about how much more I learned since I had to look around in Excel to figure out what it could all do. I even figured out something Denise didn't even know Excel could do! :)

I think to an extent I could do something similar to this in the classroom. Since I like math exploring Excel is fun for me, but not as much for my students. Also, it took me a lot longer to figure out what to do and in the classroom I only have 42 minute classes. I think with a little more guidance (and maybe group work) I could do more discovery lessons in my classroom.

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