Nothing Wrong with a Little Humour :)

When looking for a TED talk last week, I came across this video and thought it was both hilarious and true, especially since we are coming close to the end of the course.  IF you have time, feel free to watch this, it WILL make you smile.

And since we are still in class, why not an educational tie in about the effects of Humor in the Classroom.  Enjoy!  :)

Change of Heart!

Change of heart!

I have to admit, I used to get annoyed when students would arrive in my grade 8 class and still count on their fingers.  I have never disallowed my students to use their fingers but it annoyed me for some reason. I am totally pro-manipulatives in the classroom and I encourage my students to use them but the fingers got under my skin and I’m not entirely sure why.   I have many a discussion about why we no longer practice the multiplication tables in the junior grade. (I know some still do)  After reading this article by Jo Boaler 

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/why-kids-should-use-their-fingers-in-math-class/478053/

I have definitely had a change of heart!  In the article, it states that “research shows that we actually see a representation of our fingers in our brains, even when we don’t use fingers in our calculations” WOW that was amazing to me!  Brian Butterworths findings that students aren’t learning numbers through thinking about their fingers, those “numbers will never have a normal representation in the brain” shocked me!  Oh the guilt!  I knew that visual math was important but finger representation? Who knew? I actually explained a math problem to one of my students today using both of our hands and all of our fingers, and she got it immediately!  Time to let our fingers do the talking! J  

John Hattie's Golden Rules for Teachers

There is a lot of research out there indicating what's best for our students.  John Hattie sums up his research by providing his Golden Rules for Teachers in this video:

3 Act Math Tasks - Robert Kaplinsky

3 Act Math should have a place in every math classroom.  The toughest part is getting started.  Thanks to educators like Dan Meyers there are growing resources that are readily available to use.  Another educator that I would like to highlight is Robert Kaplinsky (@RobertKaplinsky). Robert has been in education since 2003 and has a very impressive resume including instructing at UCLA.  Robert has his own website where he offers a number of lessons that follow a 3 Act Math Task format.  The lessons do follow the United States math curriculum, but are easily filtered by either grade level or math strand.  Each lesson comes complete with images or videos and a script to follow.  Enjoy!

Math with Matthew

Dr. Matthew Beyranevand is the K-12 Mathematics and Science Coordinator for the Chelmsford Public Schools. Through his website (Math with Matthew), Matthew provides visitors with podcasts, music videos, educational resources, and a video blog. Matthew is currently an active user of Twitter, Facebook, Periscope, and Instagram to get his message out to help improve student interest and engagement in mathematics.

I came across his website when looking I was looking for content to post for a previous discussion and felt that his site would be an excellent resource to share with everyone.  I originally was on his site listening to his podcasts about strategies for stronger student engagement but it doesn't end there.  There are a number of useful videos that could be used as a hook in classes ranging from elementary school to high school.  From what I've seen, he is active with his blog posts (May 18, 2016), his videos (latest April 3 2016), and is a member/supporter of the Global Math Project.  If that was not enough, Matthew is currently in his fourth season producing and hosting his public access television show "Math with Matthew" and recently completed a 16-month project for a pilot project of a "Bill Nye the Science Guy" style show featuring the Pythagorean theorem.

It's hard not to get motivated by this guy.  I hope you enjoy his stuff as much as I did!

In every mistake there is a potential for growth!

I personally am a big believer in productive failure. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very important to co-construct learning goals and success criteria with our students.  They need a framework in order to show them where they are going academically. Goals and criteria paint a clear picture for the students of the teacher’s intended outcome.  They provide them with clear directions and examples (or rubrics) of what is expected, thus enabling students to feel more successful in their tasks and allows them to feel more in control.

BUT…don’t most of us learn by DOING?  Everybody makes mistakes and most successful people learn from those mistakes.  When all of the criteria are laid out for students, some of them may achieve the intended outcomes but many of them may not know how they got there.  In allowing for productive failure, students may not necessarily achieve the set learning goal initially but they do gain knowledge and understanding that may allow for them to reach that goal on their next try.

I read the following article which solidifies by point exactly.

http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/04/19/how-productive-failure-for-students-can-help-lessons-stick/

We must help our students change their mathematical mindsets. Manu Kapur, a professor of psychological studies in Hong Kong has studied productive failure for years.  He says as teachers, we must provide students with tasks they won’t be able to solve but aren’t too difficult that they give up.  During and after their struggles is where the real teaching/learning occurs.  (His lesson design is outlined in the article)

I love Kapur’s quote “No matter how engaging, entertaining or logically structured the new information is, the novice by definition is not going to see the same thing as the expert in the presentation.” In letting the students explore, question and converse with each other on mathematical problems, not only does everyone have an opportunity to participate irrespective of their mathematical ability, but the students increase their knowledge and understanding as a whole. In every mistake there is the potential for growth!

Making Math Happen Workshop

I attended a math workshop today in our district entitled Making Math Happen presented by Vera Teschow.  We had such an interesting day thanks to Vera.  I learned a lot of new ideas that I could bring into the classroom as an OT or for a longer term capacity.  Here was one of my favourite activities.

We were given an 8.5x8.5 sheet of blank paper and an instruction sheet (below).

We were asked to fold the blank piece of paper into different sized shapes, for example, make a square that is half the size of the original piece of paper.  We had to take pictures of each step along the way using our phones.  Then when we had everything finished we used an app called Flipagram and were able to post and showcase our work - take a look!  https://flipagram.com/f/qHnEuO0lqk

This was the first time I had used Flipagram and it was very easy and intuitive to use.  I could see this being a great activity to use as an OT because it requires little set up (instruction sheet, and photocopy paper, tablets or phones).  Students could show their work using flipagram and email it to you or post it on a Padlet.  Should the tablets or computers not be available in the class, you could still do this activity but just create booklets out of the "scrap" pieces of paper that were cut off to make the 8.5x8.5 sheets initially.  Great activity, thank you so much for sharing Vera Teschow!