Have you ever felt so lost in class and wondered what the heck you were learning? I used to think this practically every day at the beginning of the year. Now, I know what we are learning and I am able to make connections to the real world. I can sit there well my teacher talks about Pythagorean Theorem and I know in my head “Oh yeah that’s how you find the side length of a hypotenuse on a grid” and I understand it, but earlier, I wouldn’t have had the slightest idea what the teacher was trying to explain. This leads me to believe that I have grown heavily in comprehension. Most of this growth was in Math Class because now I get what I am being taught, it is easier to know what is important and I can explain it to another student, through pictures, graphs and explanations. This growth wasn’t easy and came through several challenges and endeavors.

 

An example of an endeavor that taught me comprehension is the Focus Question, and Focus Question Answer for 3.3 in the book looking for Pythagoras. In this investigation we had to find the distance of two points on a grid. The way we do this is by drawing side lengths and then squaring them. Squaring is a mathematical process in which you take a number and multiply it by itself. Basically, it is taking a line and making it into a square by multiplying it by itself. We had two points and we squared the distance between both. Then we found the square root of the two points. To take a square root is finding what number multiplied by itself will equal itself. For example, take the number 16. To find the square root of 16 I would find what number times itself equals 16. I know that 4 multiplied by itself equals 16. So using that reasoning the square root of 16 is 4. When we first learned that I never knew how we did it. I was always lost and I could never find square root. I went back into my notes and reviewed it and I asked questions to understand better. Now I can explain square root to you because I understand it and I know how to do it.

 

 This is significant because if I never did this I wouldn’t have had any practice with comprehension. Through learning Pythagorean Theorem I had to use my brain in a new way and at first I wasn’t very good at it but after that I got better through lots of practice. I had to get help from my teacher and my peers. I wouldn’t have been in the same point of understanding if I never thought through the Pythagorean Theorem, because it was very hard at first but after working through it I had gained an understanding of the content but I also gained practice at thinking through projects and problems. I did this by drawing models and taking notes.

 

Another piece of work that shows my progress is a warm up paper we did at the beginning of class one day. We had a triangle that was oriented so that it was off the grid lines and we had to decide if it was a right triangle or not. We had to look at the legs of the triangle, which are the two sides of the triangle that form the right angle. The other side is called the hypotenuse, which is the side opposite of the right angle. I had to use prior knowledge to make an inference on how to tell if it was a right angle by measuring it. This caused me to need to dig into my memory and make new discoveries which is using comprehension. I got a six out of six on the paper so I know that I did it right using my comprehension skills.

 

Since I used comprehension to figure out an answer, I was practicing it and making my skill in it stronger. On the back of the paper you can also see how I was able to explain myself. I would not have been able to explain myself if it weren’t for my growth in comprehension. I had to comprehend what I was able to do on the paper so I could formulate it in an explanation.

 

Due to all of this evidence, and the fact that my math grade has gone up, I believe that I have grown in comprehension in math, as well as the rest of my classes, and everyday life. I am more able to process what I am learning, and also I am more able to explain to another person what I have learned. I can understand something with less explanation, as well as model something I have learned in a clear way. This will help my future because I will understand instructions that I am given and I will be able to execute tasks better because I know what I’m doing.