To begin, Happy Canada Day everybody! I thought
I’d start my first blog entry by taking a look at some teaching practices
related to Mathematics and Special Education. Math can be a struggle for many
of us, throw a special need or learning disability into the mix and it becomes
a massive challenge that many of students face their entire school career and
into their professional lives. A recent report from the EQAO
office tells us that if cognitive and language development are not met by
our students at the end of kindergarten, this vulnerable group’s chances of
meeting the provincial expectations by the end of grade 3 are substantially
weakened. By the time this at risk group
reaches our classrooms in grades 7 through 10 the challenge of catching up
developmentally are that much greater. We know from the work completed in
module 2, much of the course work in our subject area (intermediate math) is
reliant on a student’s ability to perform on a highly cognitively level.
Abstract thinking begins appearing in the curriculum in grade 7 and is almost
entirely weaved seamlessly throughout the entire curriculum by grade 10.
There are a number of approaches researched
by our colleagues in the following two documents Education
for All (2005) and Leading Math
Success (2004). While each of these reports is slightly dated, they still
hold key teaching techniques to empower teachers and students in promoting math
success.
As an example, the Education for All
document assists teachers in promoting communication in mathematics among their
students, these strategies include:
1 Think Pair Share
Show and Tell
Math Reader’s Theatre
Mathematician’s Chair
Cooperative Problem
Solving
Catch the Mistake Make
it Right
Mind Mapping
Think Talk Write
Graphic Organizers
Placemat
Math word wall/Math
strategy wall
Journals/Logs
Poster Projects
Math Creative Writing
There are a ton of good resources in this
document, and I urge you to check out pages
86 through to 90 for detail on student impact and implementation
strategies.
Similarly, Leading Math Success also proves
to be a great resource for teachers interested in promoting math literacy in
assisting students at risk. For list of manipulatives that can be made at home,
click here.
If anyone notices that the hyperlinks are not working for some reason, just let me know and I'll try to fix them!
Thanks!
Nicolina
Great thoughts/ideas/strategies, Nicolina. I like that you included all of these links. You quoted an EQAO document relating to student development of cognitive and language skills by the end of Kindergarten and their success by the end of grade 3. In my opinion, I feel that we are forcing too much education on very young children. Children enter all-day Kindergarten around age 3-4 and I think this is far too young for students to begin schooling full-time. At this age, I feel it is more important for children to run around, play, and gain social skills by interacting with others. I only have some volunteer experience in a Kindergarten classroom, but I observed that it was very difficult for the students to sit down and learn for extended periods of time. Yes, Kindergarteners should learn the alphabet and how to count, but in the long run I think it is better for kids to be kids and develop necessary social skills at this age. This early education could maybe be a factor contributing to the high degree of stress and anxiety we observe in older students at the intermediate and senior levels; however, this is just an idea and a totally different discussion topic…
ReplyDeleteHi Courtney,
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of pressure on kindergarten age children. The idea of asking a 3 or 4 your old to stay away from a family member or a caregiver for six hours a day/five days a week does seem stressful.
My nephew received his report card from senior kindergarten last month. A rubric was used to determine whether he was developed or highly developed in specific areas of literacy and numercy. While I think it is good that the Ministry is taking the education of elementary students more seriously than in the past, I'd have to agree that the structure of the curriculum/reporting not only breeds anxiety among the students, but also the parents. My sister was left trying to decipher what half of the report card meant, between all of the education jargon.