This week the in class and online portions of our math classes focused on the different strategies we can show our students and the different that our students may come up with. As a teacher I find being open to the idea of different strategies other than your own personal ideas extremely detrimental to a students learning. Creating a learning environment that is flexible and allows for differentiation is one way to increase a child's learning. Another would be to ask the right questions. Questions that have a wide base and high ceiling, that basically allow anyone to answer them are important. Backwards design can also be used. Start with the answer. Have your students figure out as many ways to get that answer. Do not put any limitations on their learning. The example we used in class was the number 13.
How can we make 13? Well, there are hundreds of ways to make the number 13. We can be simple and choose the equation 7 + 6 = 13. We can also be complex and say 2^3 + √25 = 13. We can then make rules, like you have to use at least six different numbers so you can have 7 + 6 +5 +8 + 3 + 10 = 13. Then our learners can be as creative as possible, fostering the creative process.
This week was also my week to present a webinar. I really enjoyed my experience with the webinar. At first, I did not know what to expect, I had never participated in or created a webinar, so I was nervous. Presentations aren’t really my thing. We (Brittany and I) prepared very well for the webinar, creating a very user-friendly webinar with multiple resources and plenty of time to prepare for participation. When presenting our webinar things ran fairly smooth, with no technological interruptions. We had the topic of incorporating technology and games into financial literacy in the classroom. We chose to present games that had clear negative and positive attributes to create discussion, not to present the perfect game. Brittany and I wanted our participants to explain and discuss what a good technological tool is, and how they would use it in their classroom, which was our goal from the beginning; hopefully our colleagues now better understand the importance technology and financial literacy in the classroom. A big thanks to our participants for coming out and being a great audience.
How can we make 13? Well, there are hundreds of ways to make the number 13. We can be simple and choose the equation 7 + 6 = 13. We can also be complex and say 2^3 + √25 = 13. We can then make rules, like you have to use at least six different numbers so you can have 7 + 6 +5 +8 + 3 + 10 = 13. Then our learners can be as creative as possible, fostering the creative process.
This week was also my week to present a webinar. I really enjoyed my experience with the webinar. At first, I did not know what to expect, I had never participated in or created a webinar, so I was nervous. Presentations aren’t really my thing. We (Brittany and I) prepared very well for the webinar, creating a very user-friendly webinar with multiple resources and plenty of time to prepare for participation. When presenting our webinar things ran fairly smooth, with no technological interruptions. We had the topic of incorporating technology and games into financial literacy in the classroom. We chose to present games that had clear negative and positive attributes to create discussion, not to present the perfect game. Brittany and I wanted our participants to explain and discuss what a good technological tool is, and how they would use it in their classroom, which was our goal from the beginning; hopefully our colleagues now better understand the importance technology and financial literacy in the classroom. A big thanks to our participants for coming out and being a great audience.
Our
webinar can be found at:
Hey Matt!
ReplyDeleteGreat post this week. I agree with your belief that asking the right questions in math is crucial. Question and activity design in math class has been neglected for some time. All to often educators automatically teach their students the same way they were taught, beginning with a skill, participating that skill on their own then assessment at the end of the unit. It can be argued that this way of teaching math is still effective, but most times its only really beneficial for higher level learners. Creating math lessons and activities that involve strategies like "rich" questions allows teachers to combat the old way of teaching and viewing math.
Drive slow
Matt,
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I really enjoyed your blog post this week. I also enjoyed the mini math activity where we had to find as many ways to create an equation that would equal to 13. It really allowed the teacher candidates to think of all the infinite ways one can solve an equation. This is something that should be implemented into the classroom where there isn't one standard way to solve a problem. Doing activities like this one allows students to broaden their thinking and also learn new ways to solve.
Great post.
Hey Matt!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post this week and thanks for sharing the link to your webinar. I too agree that it is important for our students to have an open classroom where solving for equations is limitless. Students need to know that there is never just one right way to solve for an equation. It is imperative that we foster a growth mindset classroom and allow our students to explore, especially in math. I found the question solving for how many ways to make 13, one of those questions that allows for a rich task and a very open ended task. All students can take part in this question, start at their own pace and work in a manner that suits their math skills. As future teachers it is extremley important that we adopt open ended questions and rich tasks into our daily lessons. Excellent work this week!
Cheers, Courtney
Great post Matt! Your webinar sounded like it was not only educational but very fun as well. Incorporating technology in the classroom and especially in math lessons is always a plus because it keeps students engaged in their learning. Technology in the class is also a great way to incorporate differentiation into the lesson as well. I agree with you in that it is important to allow students to use different strategies when problem solving in math because there are various types of learners in the classroom and in math there is not just one right way of finding the solution but rather a way that everyone can feel comfortable with themselves depending on their learning style.
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