Alex Vollaro

Reflection #2

This past week we started class by talking about infinity. Infinity is a hard concept to
understand for not only students, but clearly for us to explain as well. I have a brother in
eleventh grade and I asked him what he thought infinity meant. He described infinity as an
endless number that goes on and on forever. Then after thinking about it some more he got a little
confused and did not really know how to explain it. He just entered pre-calculus so he has not
encountered limits yet, but I would think his answer is a pretty standard explanation of infinity
from a high school student.
Last class we also discussed how to introduce radians by first calling them wedges. Math
terminology turns off students and that is where we tend to lose a lot of them. By starting off
with informal math terminology, students will be able to understand the concept better as well as
aiding teachers to keep their attention for a little longer since most of the students will not know
where the lesson is heading. This is also a perfect example of using episodic memory when
teaching. Students will associate angle measure in "wedges" every time they are using radians.
The topic of episodic memory keeps getting addressed and it just goes to show the importance of
it. By using kinesthetic activities to help trigger students episodic memory down the road,
students will hopefully understand the topic while doing it instead of figuring it out as they go.
Many students associate math with doubt and hesitance. For example, even asking my brother
the question about infinity. Not every single lesson will have a kinesthetic activity with it, but by
using different methods like humor or by connecting certain ideas to an activity done before,
students can reconstruct the topic and eliminate that confusion. Episodic memory and using

activities is a great way to reconstruct different problems and ideas to help students better
understand a topic.