Mini White boards for math?

I am the type of teacher that can’t move on to a new topic unless I know for sure everyone understands what I am teaching. During my first year teaching, I would use the method of raise your hand if you agree and use some tricks to make students doubt their answers. I taught at an elementary level, but I will use an example of what I would have done if I was in grade 7-10 math class.

For example, Solve:  20-10(5-3) = ?

     a)      0

     b)      2

     c)      4

     d)   6

     e)      None of the above

During this period, as educators, we know which students are doing well in class and which students are struggling. Using my strategy of raise your hand if you think (a) is the right answer, students that have no idea will raise their hands with the majority of the class. That doesn’t help me as a teacher know who actually understands. To doubt that students I would say “but 20-10= 10 and 5-3=2. 10(2)=20. I think the answer is none of the above, would anybody agree with me.” Then we would start a classroom discussion.

The following year, I used the strategy of the mini white board and had students write down their answer on it and raise it up for me to take a look. I noticed a big difference in answers and I had a better idea of who understands the lessons and who needs help. I would fix the problem right there by reviewing the lesson and using different strategies.   

Class Summary

I have to be completely honest and say that what I learned in this course is more that I learned during Teacher's College. We looked at resources, practices, pedagogy, teaching strategies, assessment methods and more which were all geared towards the math curriculum, but most certainly does not limit us to the math curriculum. There is nothing we won't be able to use in our careers as teachers that we didn't learn in this course. I have never bookmarked so many pages in my Chrome browser as I have over the last 2 months. Everything we covered is transferable throughout the subjects and I am so grateful for that. I am excited to use the information I learned in this course in my science teachables and I am looking forward to the next course I take!

Millennials

I saw this awhile back and thought it was quite relevant to this course and teaching. Millennials do get a bad rep and whether that is fair or not is up for debate. Simon brings up a lot of interesting points about this generation and why they act like they do. I have to admit that even though I am not technically considered a millennial I can be guilty of some of the things he talks about on occasion. As teachers it is important to understand our students, and since we will be teaching this generation we may as well educate ourselves more! Let me know what you guys think.

Mental Math

I work part time in retail during the year and I'm always finding new ways to calculate math in my head. It's a shame that students have resorted to using calculators all the time rather than challenging themselves to do simple math in their heads. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I certainly do believe that simple mental math needs to be a requirement in our schools. It's not very often that people in everyday jobs need to bust out their scientific calculator to do a calculation. The basic mathematical operations are really all we need to know for most jobs. If mental math becomes part of the curriculum again I know students will be far better off in their first jobs.

Collaboration in High School

I write this Blog as a question to my fellow educators asking for your knowledge on how much collaborating occurs in the average high school math class. But first, a bit of background information.

In the school I have spent my brief teaching career in thus far the teachers and principal love the idea of collaborating. This occurs as an entire school community, through team teaching, and in the individual class itself. I have grown to love this concept and have fully embraced it. For example, I love throwing in random problems of the week and have my students work in pairs to solve them. I love incorporating real world tasks for my students to solve, as I believe this will be beneficial in the workforce.

For those who enjoy throwing problems at their students in order to see teamwork and cooperation, here is the link to the university of waterloo's POW.



However, I recently heard one of my colleagues saying that we should put our intermediate students back into rows as this is how classrooms are set-up in high school. He also mentioned how high school is much more independent than elementary school (this was one of our resource teachers by the way). Because I don't teach high school and can't really recall accurately how we learned on a  day to day basis I was hoping to hear some feedback from any of the high school teachers associated with this AQ

Asking Effective Questions and Problem Solving

Blog Post Two:

Asking Effective Questions and Problem Solving

In my experience teaching Grade 7/8 homeroom math this year, it was a constant challenge to have my students become effective problem solvers. I found the reasoning for this to be two fold. Many of my students lacked the decoding strategies that were necessary to deconstruct multi-step and comprehensive mathematical problems. In spite of obvious connections made to a specific skill or unit, and an considerable knowledge and understanding of mathematical processes, many students did not know how to determine what they were looking for and accordingly had to be walked through the process of determining what information was important to parse out from the task.

I was deeply committed to helping my students build these skills because I could empathaize with the frustration and confusion they were feeling when they were trying to solve a nuanced mathematical problem. Growth mindset is something that is extremely important to me and my relationship with math was far from ideal throughout high school. Only later in my involvement in education did I realize how FUN math can be.

Rich tasks allow students to ask rich questions and use an inquiry based model to develop mathematical strategies. One of the best tools that I have found to help students learn to approach problems with confidence is one that is question focused rather than problem focused. When students have the opportunity to develop their line of mathematical inquiry and through guided teaching, determine the  type of questions that should be asked, they are not only more engaged with the material, but are more aware of the process that they need to determine the most accurate answer.  Three Act Math actively encourages students to become conversant with mathematical questioning.  It uses positive reinforcement to help the students learn the types of questions that should be asked, how to communicate their mathematical thinking and how to achieve the desirable end result. This type of instruction brings real world problems to the forefront of math learning and encourages students to approach new tasks with a positive attitude and a questioning mind.

Blog Post One: Math Talks

Math Talks

Math talks help students actively develop new ways of thinking about numbers. Math talks encourage students to use their prior knowledge about math, make meaningful connections to mathematical problems and communicate their mathematical understanding in a clear and concise way.

Math talks are extremely accessible, help develop growth mindset, and allow for the participation of learners of all ability levels. One of my favourite Number Talk websites was developed by educator and mathematician, Mary Bourassa. The number talks she, and other collaborators have developed ask students to use their knowledge of number sense to determine which of four numbers does not belong.  What is amazing about this exercise is that ALL students, regardless and ability can engage in this type of rich and open discussion. Answers can be incredibly simple or more comprehensive and nuanced.

These talks are a great way of determining a students level of comfort with different curriculum strands, encourages class discussion and helps a teacher determine a students depth of mathematical understanding.

http://wodb.ca/numbers.html