Showing posts with label Common Core. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Common Core. Show all posts

Social Learning Environment is the KEY to Success


The successful facilitation of CCSS is based on the social learning environment of the classroom.

 

Does your class have a norm that requires students to provide an explanation with their solution?  This norm, if present, places importance on HOW students solved a problem rather than just IF they solved the problem.

Norms should include:

1.       Provide explanations and justifications as part of your solution process.

2.       Attempt  to make sense of their classmate’s solutions by asking questions for clarification.

3.       Communicate when you don’t understand or agree with solutions others present, spurring healthy debate between and among students. (Purposeful talk)

Eventually, these discussions become a natural part of the classroom discourse and can occur in an organized way without your direction.  These norms are established through a process of negotiation in which you make your expectations clear but also involve students in the process of implementing the norms. (Cobb, 2000).

It is likely you will need to model these sorts of behaviors for your students, until it becomes a natural part of your math classroom.  You can scaffold this by asking challenging and probing questions.  To do this effectively, you need a deep understanding of the mathematics you teach so you can support student engagement in this practice.

You should think about what sorts of expectations and behaviors support desired engagement during mathematics instruction and what detracts from it.

 

 

Top 10 Activities to Process the Common Core Standards

Gearing up for the Common Core is both exciting, yet can be overwhelming.  This Top Ten List of activities are designed as different ways to process the Math Common Core Standards.  They could be used in a whole group setting, small group, professional learning communities, or for individual learners.  The Ten Activities are linked to more detailed information. I hope you find some of these helpful in your district.

Top 8 Strategies For Using Math Manipulatives

#1  From day one, set ground rules for using manipualtives.  Talk about the similarities and differences between using manipualtives for play and for using them as math tools.

#2 Talk with students about how manipulative helps them to learn math concepts.

#3 Discuss etiquette when using manipulatives if you need more green triangles, how do you go about getting more.  Interfering with another's work is not acceptable.

#4 Set up a system for storing materials and familiarize students with it.  Some teachers designate and label a place for the manipulatives.  Others use zip-lock bags and portion out the manipulatives for each student, pair, or group. 

#5 Give students time to explore with manipulatives when introducing a new tool.  After children have explored a material, ask what they've discovered and record observations on a chart.

#6 Post class charts about manipulative tools.  It sends the message that you value manipulatives, but also helps them to learn materials names and how to spell them.  This also reminds students of all the possible tools available to them.

#7  Write about the use of manipulatives.  Manipulatives provide a concrete objects for students to describe.

#8 Let parents work with manipulatives, it is important for them to understand why using manipulatives is helpful in learning math. 

Two Steps For Developing Communication in the Classroom

This week I have been thinking more and more about how to get the message of the importance of communication between student to student and students to teacher is critical if we want to create great problem solvers who have great reasoning skills.   I just read an article in a NCTM journal by a fourth grade teacher and I love her quote: "Communication is not a passing fad!  It belongs in the very heart of every math classroom."  So how do we make it the heart of every classroom? 

What is Number Sense and How Do I Get It For My Students?


What is number sense?  I hear from school to school, teacher to teacher that kids don't have number sense or know their basic facts.  I've often wondered, not knowing the basic facts, is it the problem or the symptom of a greater problem.   I've come to the conclusion that not knowing the basic facts is a much deeper problem of not having strong number sense.  So what is number sense?

Make Sense of Problems and Persevere in Solving Them


One of the "processes and proficiencies" recommended by the Common Core Standards in math education is for students to "make sense of problems and persevere in solving them."  With this expectation come many questions:
1.     What does this really mean?
2.     How do we get students to achieve at this level?
3.     What kinds of professional learning will be necessary for teachers?

Modeling Improper Fractions


Why do students who may have succeeded in mathematics in the lower grades struggle when they get into third grade or above?  Students may do quite well with whole number mathematics, but once we start working with fractions, often tend to struggle. This struggle, I believe is due to the lack of understanding of fractions we teachers have ourselves.  Most textbooks never go deeper than the understanding that a fraction as a part of a whole.

Abstract Math to Representational For Understanding


One of the most difficult tasks as a math teacher is how to bring abstract math down into a more concrete, representational conceptual understanding. 

Top 5 Must Do's To Create a Safe and Learning Environment

Top 5 Must Do's To Create a Safe and Learning Environment
It's another school year and a time with new students.  The time is here to set the stage and determine the culture of your classroom for the upcoming year.  It's as easy as counting to five.

Dangers in Teaching Key Words


Defining Problem Solving
Educators say we need our students to be better problem solvers, so we need to determine what problem solving truly entails.   According to BusinessDictionary.com it is:
"The process of working through details of a problem to reach a solution. Problem solving may include mathematical or systematic operations and can be a gauge of an individual'scritical thinking skills."

Two Words of Caution Before Adopting a New Textbook


Looking for a new math textbook to align to common core?  If so, you are amongst thousands of school districts across the United States.  Just a few words of caution:

Creating Dialogue and Discussion


One goal in every effective math classroom is to get students to talk about mathematics.  We want our students to analyze, question, and critique other students thinking.  One way to encourage this type of discussion to take place is to force students to choose sides. 

Why Use a Variety of Math Tools?

I just finished a professional learning opportunity entitled Using Tools to Enhance Mathematical Understanding.  A large part of our discussion was based around the purpose of why students, K-12, should use various tools (concrete or representational) to solve math problems. 
This blog is designed to give four reasons why using math tools can be beneficial to any K-12 classroom.

Math Anxiety - The Deadly Killer of Math in US

It is the goal of our country to make our country competitive in the global market by improving our math and science scores. I believe improving our math scores does not guarantee mathematical improvement in our students.  Even if we score well, if students don't love and feel confident in mathematics they will not take the higher-level mathematics needed for careers in engineering or medicine. 
Math anxiety is real and extremely dangerous. 

Using Survey of Enacted Curriculum to Compare Differences

At one of my professional learning opportunities I became aware of this awesome online tool from Survey of Enacted Curriculum.  At first, I was overwhelmed with this tool, but as I dug deeper when working with teachers, I found this tool to be extremely helpful when looking at how the content from the standards had changed and to what level of understanding students needed to have within each standard.  The tool is designed to help teachers initiate conversations with their colleagues about practice, and to inform their own school improvement decision-making efforts.

Using Video Footage to Understand the 8 Mathematical Practices


The 8 Mathematical Practices are designed to transform math classrooms across the nation.  The time has come to move away from sit and mimic the teacher to requiring higher-levels of understanding of our teachers and students.  This is no easy task.  Most of us often teach the way we were taught.  One question that arises is "What does it look like?"  As I started learning more about the 8 mathematical practices for math, I began a search into finding video classroom examples.
Because of our visual nature, seeing it in "action" in a real-classroom can often give us the nudge we need to learn and transfer this vision into our own classroom.

Communicating the Differences

I have spent the past two years working with a district aligning their curriculum to the CCSS in mathematics.  We are now at a point where this work we have done can be communicated quickly and efficiently to other teachers in the district and the board of education.  The process described below is how one district chose to communicate the differences. 

Why a Variety of Student Strategies is Clarifying NOT Confusing

Why would we want to support and even encourage students to explore different strategies to solve problems?  Won't straying from the traditional algorithm be confusing for students?  I learned how to calculate problems this one-way and I'm doing fine, why shouldn't my students?