Aria's Maths learning story

Aria’s Maths learning story.         

At Porirua College there are 220 boys.  132 boys choose to wear a lavalava.

E.J says that this percentage is because Porirua College students have a strong Samoan identity.

Do you agree that the percentage E.J worked out is enough to show that Porirua College has a strong Samoan identity?

Maths is a subject where everyone thinks it’s a waste of time.

Well that's not what I think and maybe it’s not what you think at all either. In my perspectives I think that it’s how you are going to solve a problem with or without anyone. Now let’s see how I solved this problem shall we.

Well first off I wrote down what I knew...

• ½ of 220 = 110 = 50% who wore a lavalava.
• 10% of 220 = 22 boys who wore a lavalava.

How did I know that 10% = 22. Well I wrote down...

220 = 100% then

22 = 10%. So mainly I took away the zero from the 220b and the 100%.

But we are trying to find out if we agree with E.J’s percentage and if P.C has a strong samoan identity. Now that would mean that we are trying to find out what 132boys is as a percentage. So I…

Plus 110 (50%) + 22 (10%) = 132 (60%). So that means that P.C does have a strong samoan identity because there are 60% of boys who do wear lavalava and 40% don’t.

Relating to others. This K.C helps all the time in maths because I used it by explaining what we were doing in a way others in my group can understand. Also I can answer any of their question if they wanted to know more e.g “How did you get that” or “Why did you do that”. Somethings I will explain it in a different way if they don’t understand me the first time.

My next steps would probably be to make sure I really understand what the problem is about and what I’m being asked to solve  before jumping into it. I can achieve that by reading and reading again so I can understand it better or I can just ask my group to explain what the problem is about.

You don’t know it but maths is all around you!