It's been a while...I know.....I've been busy. I'll blog about my trip to Washington DC in another post, but will take the time to mention this quickly- night one in DC, hotel bar, 10:15 DC time, 7:15 Cali time. I asked to get the Giants v. Dodgers game on the TV and was told this was not going to happen. So I ordered another cosmo. Welcome to the East Coast and it only got better from there!
I'm excited and happy to report on a wonderful power struggle that I engaged the class with during math this morning! Usually I try to avoid power struggles with 6th graders, but I figured since it was all 26 v. me, what better way to start a math lesson, than with a power struggle stare down? We started math with a Least Common Multiple Interactive Learning Problem. A guy washes dishes on every 2nd day of the week and he folds clothes on every third day of the week type of schedule. So the 6th grade had to figure out when both of these exciting activities would occur on the same day. I asked them to talk with their partner about how they would go about solving this problem. Fast forward 60 seconds. Me: "Who would like to share how they would solve this problem?" Student 1: "I got 5." Me: "Okay, well that's an answer. How did you get it?" Student 1: "I added 2 + 3 and got five." Me: "Okay, since we're at the answer, who else got five?" Student 2: "I got 6." Me: "Okay, how did you get six?" Student 2: "I multiplied 2 and 3." Me: "Well, which is the answer and how can we prove it works for this problem because yes, 2x3=6 and 2+3=5."
Start power struggle here: staring contest-- me and 26 ten, eleven and twelve year olds. Time elapses for what seems to be eternity. No one said anything, we were all just thinking. I wasn't timing, but when I had had enough time to think about the Raiders winning the Super Bowl this season and picturing Darren McFadden running in the game winning touchdown coast to coast in OT, I knew it was time to disengage the power struggle and move on.
Me: "Can anyone help me prove which answer is correct?" Nothing. Nothing and more nothing. Maybe this was a mini stare down. Regardless, I don't think I blinked the entire time. Me: "Would anyone object if I wrote a chart on the board listing the days of the week or something to the effect of Day 1, Day 2 etc.?" No objections. I wrote the chart, they wrote the chart, we checked off the 2nd and 3rd days and found that both activities would occur on the 6th day.
I guess the moral is I've got to figure out how to get students to demonstrate Standard for Mathematical Practice #3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
American Splendor (ESPN)/Math
I borrowed this title from the ESPN website. All students need to persevere in math the way the United States perserved against Brazil today in the quarterfinal match of the Women's FIFA World Cup in Germany. I would love to show this game to my students and relate it to solving a challenging problem in math. I think they would have to watch the entire two and a half hours of play to understand perseverance and its true meaning.
Brazil was a challenging problem and the U.S. found many ways to persevere and solve the problem. The game started around 8:30am and ended around 11:00am. I am not suggesting that students spend three hours on a math problem. I am suggesting that for the given amount of time a student works on one problem, he or she should work with the same amount of effort that the U.S. women gave today.
Here are some of the ways (individually and as a team) that the U.S. demonstrated perseverance: Abby Wambach scored the tying goal. It was the latest goal scored in soccer history. It was scored in the 122nd minute of the game. She played 123 minutes total. This goal was scored in a new dimension of soccer- extra time in the second half of a 15 minute over time period. The U.S. played with only 10 players (because of a red card) for forty-five minutes. The U.S. passed better and had better teamwork than Brazil. Hope Solo saved two penalty kicks. Goalies only have a 20% chance-- statistically speaking, of making a save on a PK. She did that twice- in one game. The U.S. was not rattled or discouraged by the inadequate officiating. Pretend like the officials were the math problem (as they were very problematic) the U.S. did not say, "This problem is too hard!' They kept their composure and persevered. I know the U.S. will win the World Cup again. I hope there will be an article that one day shows improvement of students making progress in persevering with high cognitive demand math tasks.
Brazil was a challenging problem and the U.S. found many ways to persevere and solve the problem. The game started around 8:30am and ended around 11:00am. I am not suggesting that students spend three hours on a math problem. I am suggesting that for the given amount of time a student works on one problem, he or she should work with the same amount of effort that the U.S. women gave today.
Here are some of the ways (individually and as a team) that the U.S. demonstrated perseverance: Abby Wambach scored the tying goal. It was the latest goal scored in soccer history. It was scored in the 122nd minute of the game. She played 123 minutes total. This goal was scored in a new dimension of soccer- extra time in the second half of a 15 minute over time period. The U.S. played with only 10 players (because of a red card) for forty-five minutes. The U.S. passed better and had better teamwork than Brazil. Hope Solo saved two penalty kicks. Goalies only have a 20% chance-- statistically speaking, of making a save on a PK. She did that twice- in one game. The U.S. was not rattled or discouraged by the inadequate officiating. Pretend like the officials were the math problem (as they were very problematic) the U.S. did not say, "This problem is too hard!' They kept their composure and persevered. I know the U.S. will win the World Cup again. I hope there will be an article that one day shows improvement of students making progress in persevering with high cognitive demand math tasks.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
A Teacher Blogging During the Summer-- What?!
I know, I know this blog may come as a surprise, me (a teacher), composing a blog on Tuesday, June 28 in the middle of summer! Although, it is raining outside. We tell our students to read during the summer, so I figure me doing some typing couldn't hurt. This blog is happening because I am in a math workshop-- Project LEAD (Leading Educators in Academic Discourse) from 8:30-3:30 in Santa Rosa all week. So far I am really enjoying getting up at 7:10am and getting home around 4:20pm all week.
Speaking of reading, my 4 year old daughter and I have been doing quite a bit of it together this summer. One of her favorite books that she has discovered and continually wants me to read to her is The Eloise Ready-to-Read Treasury. Every story starts out like this, "I am Eloise. I am a city child. I live at the Plaza Hotel on the tippy-top floor." In addition to being a spoiled brat, some other things I like about Eloise are that she has a dog named Weenie and a turtle named Skipperdee. Eloise also happens to have a tutor named Philip. In one story Philip comes to the tippy-top floor to teach Eloise a math lesson. As the story progresses, Eloise continues to mock and annoy Philip. They get to the math problem of, "What is five plus six?" Eloise is doing everything she can to avoid answering the question. She is pretending like the chalk is a straw, she is repeating the question, etc. Then, out of nowhere, Eloise says, "Five plus six is the same as six plus five." Philip responds with, "Oh, Eloise!" The illustration shows Philip with his head in his hands. He is obviously frustrated and maybe even discouraged with Eloise. After I read this part, I turned to my daughter and said (with a lot of excitement), "Camille, while Eloise may be a spoiled brat, she demonstrated the Commutative Property of Addition, which states, When two numbers are added, the sum is the same regardless of the order of the addends. For example 4 + 2 = 2 + 4!" I was excited! Camille on the other hand, was not.
The moral of the story is that if I was not participating in Project LEAD (the math workshop), I would not have made this connection. Another connection that I made is with Philip (the tutor's reaction). Eloise is a popular book. I can't help but question, "Is this frustrated reaction to math too much engrained in popular culture?" Why couldn't Philip's reaction have been...."Eloise, that is great! You have identified the Commutative Property of Addition! Five plus six is six plus five! You are right, they both equal eleven and that is true when adding any set of numbers. Numbers can be added in any way and the sum is still the same!" Ok, maybe my rewritten version is a little over the top for a four year old, but I hope you get my point.
Speaking of reading, my 4 year old daughter and I have been doing quite a bit of it together this summer. One of her favorite books that she has discovered and continually wants me to read to her is The Eloise Ready-to-Read Treasury. Every story starts out like this, "I am Eloise. I am a city child. I live at the Plaza Hotel on the tippy-top floor." In addition to being a spoiled brat, some other things I like about Eloise are that she has a dog named Weenie and a turtle named Skipperdee. Eloise also happens to have a tutor named Philip. In one story Philip comes to the tippy-top floor to teach Eloise a math lesson. As the story progresses, Eloise continues to mock and annoy Philip. They get to the math problem of, "What is five plus six?" Eloise is doing everything she can to avoid answering the question. She is pretending like the chalk is a straw, she is repeating the question, etc. Then, out of nowhere, Eloise says, "Five plus six is the same as six plus five." Philip responds with, "Oh, Eloise!" The illustration shows Philip with his head in his hands. He is obviously frustrated and maybe even discouraged with Eloise. After I read this part, I turned to my daughter and said (with a lot of excitement), "Camille, while Eloise may be a spoiled brat, she demonstrated the Commutative Property of Addition, which states, When two numbers are added, the sum is the same regardless of the order of the addends. For example 4 + 2 = 2 + 4!" I was excited! Camille on the other hand, was not.
The moral of the story is that if I was not participating in Project LEAD (the math workshop), I would not have made this connection. Another connection that I made is with Philip (the tutor's reaction). Eloise is a popular book. I can't help but question, "Is this frustrated reaction to math too much engrained in popular culture?" Why couldn't Philip's reaction have been...."Eloise, that is great! You have identified the Commutative Property of Addition! Five plus six is six plus five! You are right, they both equal eleven and that is true when adding any set of numbers. Numbers can be added in any way and the sum is still the same!" Ok, maybe my rewritten version is a little over the top for a four year old, but I hope you get my point.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Valentine's Party- The Best ;)
Sometimes, for a teacher like myself, it is overwhelming and difficult to plan classroom parties. A teacher can have the best room parents ever and still feel nervous about class parties. This is how I feel before Halloween and Winter Holiday parties. Halloween is creepy and scary. The party for the kids should be trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. I've never really understood the need for a party at school.
Next up- the Christmas Party. Not politically correct, materialistic, commercialism, and capitalism at its best. My class didn't have one this year. We went ice skating instead and I got a few parent e-mails and phone calls questioning the lack of a "Holiday Party." Especially taboo with a classroom holiday party any kind of gift exchange. I remember a simple ornament exchange at my previous school that went horribly wrong.
All of this opinion leads me to my next opinion, my favorite party of the year- Valentine's Day! I love having kids bring in Valentine's stickers, and white paper bags to decorate their mailboxes. For about an hour this is all they want to do. I think it brings them back to their K-3 days. Today I watched 6th grade boys politely argue over stickers, then intricately decorate their mailbox bag. The next hour is passing out Valentine's four students at a time. The front of my classroom today was a mile high and a foot deep with beautiful homemade and store bought Valentine's. The side counter of the classroom was full of 2-liter bottles of the best varietal of soda the mind can imagine, along with an assortment of cheese plates, crackers, vegetables and dips. As each student passed out their Valentine's they would tell their classmates (maybe even a little nervously) "Happy Valentine's Day," drop their Valentine in the mailbox bag, and move on to the next person. After all of the Valentine's are passed out, they spend the next hour reading, analyzing, sharing, laughing, and enjoying their mail. We had Fun Dip, Pixie Sticks, Twix, Skittles, Kit Kat, 3 Musketeers, Nerds, Sweet Tarts, Conversation Hearts, Hershey's Kisses, Mr. Goodbar, Snickers, Milky Way, homemade brownies, Valentine's balloons, and homemade peppermint bark. I enjoyed, just as much as the class did, my turn to pass out to each of them, a box of Conversation Hearts. One year, we had Conversacion Corazones! That was a memorable year. Regardless of the year or the language of the Conversation Hearts, there is just something so endearing about kids passing out the same type of mail to each other so that everyone gets one and feels good about it. It's the giving and receiving that is lost during the Holiday season, that I think is captured in my class during our Valentine's Party.
Now, if you've been reading this blog carefully, you may think I had a three hour Valentine's Day party with my class today. Unfortunately, I didn't have three hours, but it could have lasted that long if I didn't have to teach math, language arts and an enrichment class. I will end this blog with the same sentence that I ended my Friday e-mail to parents with, "Sometimes I wish every day was Valentine's Day!"
Next up- the Christmas Party. Not politically correct, materialistic, commercialism, and capitalism at its best. My class didn't have one this year. We went ice skating instead and I got a few parent e-mails and phone calls questioning the lack of a "Holiday Party." Especially taboo with a classroom holiday party any kind of gift exchange. I remember a simple ornament exchange at my previous school that went horribly wrong.
All of this opinion leads me to my next opinion, my favorite party of the year- Valentine's Day! I love having kids bring in Valentine's stickers, and white paper bags to decorate their mailboxes. For about an hour this is all they want to do. I think it brings them back to their K-3 days. Today I watched 6th grade boys politely argue over stickers, then intricately decorate their mailbox bag. The next hour is passing out Valentine's four students at a time. The front of my classroom today was a mile high and a foot deep with beautiful homemade and store bought Valentine's. The side counter of the classroom was full of 2-liter bottles of the best varietal of soda the mind can imagine, along with an assortment of cheese plates, crackers, vegetables and dips. As each student passed out their Valentine's they would tell their classmates (maybe even a little nervously) "Happy Valentine's Day," drop their Valentine in the mailbox bag, and move on to the next person. After all of the Valentine's are passed out, they spend the next hour reading, analyzing, sharing, laughing, and enjoying their mail. We had Fun Dip, Pixie Sticks, Twix, Skittles, Kit Kat, 3 Musketeers, Nerds, Sweet Tarts, Conversation Hearts, Hershey's Kisses, Mr. Goodbar, Snickers, Milky Way, homemade brownies, Valentine's balloons, and homemade peppermint bark. I enjoyed, just as much as the class did, my turn to pass out to each of them, a box of Conversation Hearts. One year, we had Conversacion Corazones! That was a memorable year. Regardless of the year or the language of the Conversation Hearts, there is just something so endearing about kids passing out the same type of mail to each other so that everyone gets one and feels good about it. It's the giving and receiving that is lost during the Holiday season, that I think is captured in my class during our Valentine's Party.
Now, if you've been reading this blog carefully, you may think I had a three hour Valentine's Day party with my class today. Unfortunately, I didn't have three hours, but it could have lasted that long if I didn't have to teach math, language arts and an enrichment class. I will end this blog with the same sentence that I ended my Friday e-mail to parents with, "Sometimes I wish every day was Valentine's Day!"
Friday, January 28, 2011
Math and Texting? OMG!
I am very much immersed in the lesson study process. Lesson study is the new PLC. I made what I thought were some great connections in lesson study this week.
First, what is lesson study? Lesson study is a chance for a group of teachers to get "more time" to delve deeper into a standard with their students.
My group's lesson study is adding fractions with unlike denominators. A strength of this lesson study cycle has been that our group consists of teachers at three different grade levels- 5th, 6th and7th. Until Tuesday, we were literally lost in the minutia of fractions- LCD, GCF, numerators, denominators, simplest form, equivalent fractions, can you really call a fraction improper?, mixed numbers, decimals, ratios, division, addition, multiplication, subtraction, like terms, proportions, divisibility, 1/2=0.5=50%, relating fractions to decimals and percents and vice versa, 3/4 = 3 one fourths, etc.
We have sorted through the minutia and have finalized our lesson. We will watch one of our colleagues teach this lesson on February 7. We will observe the lesson. Our observations will be guided by certain parts of the Standards for Mathematical Practice. I am excited about applying some of these practices to our lesson observations.
Standard #6: Attend to Precision, is one I will focus on individually.
Attending to precision in all parts of math is similar to attending to precision while one is text messaging. For example: I asked one of my students, how did you get 8/16 to 1/2? The student said, "I divided by eight." Unfortunately, this student wasn't attending to precision. I pointed out that if I divided 8/16 by eight, my answer would be 1/4. So when simplifying 8/16 to 1/2, I would actually divide the numerator and denominator by 8/8.
Similarly, in texting, if I texted you IDC, but meant to text you IDK, I would have hurt your feelings- unintentionally. Similarly if I texted you BFN, but meant to text you BFF, I would have hurt your feelings- unintentionally. In math, as in texting, we can have the best intentions, but without attending to precision we have inaccurate data and hurt feelings. Math should make people happy, just as texting should. I think that if we teach our students how and why to attend to precision, they will be happy and precise mathematicians/texters!
First, what is lesson study? Lesson study is a chance for a group of teachers to get "more time" to delve deeper into a standard with their students.
My group's lesson study is adding fractions with unlike denominators. A strength of this lesson study cycle has been that our group consists of teachers at three different grade levels- 5th, 6th and7th. Until Tuesday, we were literally lost in the minutia of fractions- LCD, GCF, numerators, denominators, simplest form, equivalent fractions, can you really call a fraction improper?, mixed numbers, decimals, ratios, division, addition, multiplication, subtraction, like terms, proportions, divisibility, 1/2=0.5=50%, relating fractions to decimals and percents and vice versa, 3/4 = 3 one fourths, etc.
We have sorted through the minutia and have finalized our lesson. We will watch one of our colleagues teach this lesson on February 7. We will observe the lesson. Our observations will be guided by certain parts of the Standards for Mathematical Practice. I am excited about applying some of these practices to our lesson observations.
Standard #6: Attend to Precision, is one I will focus on individually.
Attending to precision in all parts of math is similar to attending to precision while one is text messaging. For example: I asked one of my students, how did you get 8/16 to 1/2? The student said, "I divided by eight." Unfortunately, this student wasn't attending to precision. I pointed out that if I divided 8/16 by eight, my answer would be 1/4. So when simplifying 8/16 to 1/2, I would actually divide the numerator and denominator by 8/8.
Similarly, in texting, if I texted you IDC, but meant to text you IDK, I would have hurt your feelings- unintentionally. Similarly if I texted you BFN, but meant to text you BFF, I would have hurt your feelings- unintentionally. In math, as in texting, we can have the best intentions, but without attending to precision we have inaccurate data and hurt feelings. Math should make people happy, just as texting should. I think that if we teach our students how and why to attend to precision, they will be happy and precise mathematicians/texters!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Doodle Bugs!
Today with our 2nd/3rd grade buddies we did a fun activity called Doodle Bugs. It is a shared picture. Each student gets to roll the number cubes and draw a part of the bug. One of my students came to the overhead and did a demo with me. I had to add wings to the bug. Everyone thought the wings that I drew looked like ears. It was really funny. The student then rolled and got to add a dialogue box to the bug. She didn't know what to write. One of the students raised his hand and said, "Write, 'My wings are not ears!'" It was really funny! Everyone got started with their buddy group. As I was walking around the room one group of girls had labeled their picture, "Doo Doo Bug." It was really funny! Their Doodle Bugs turned out so cute. They enjoyed working with each other and sharing the picture. After our buddy activity was over, we had our class meeting. I started class meeting with a poll: raise your hand if you liked the activity of Doodle Bugs (29 out of 29 hands went up), raise your hands if you want the chance to do another Doodle Bug with your buddy (29 out of 29 hands went up). This activity made me laugh so much! But perhaps more importantly, this activity comes from our Caring School Community curriculum. It was such a great way to build a caring school community across three grade levels. Ironically, I was talking to a parent after school about her child being in the county spelling bee. The younger sibling came up and she was one of our buddies. We started talking about both children's buddies over the past two years since the kids were new to the school last year. In our short side conversation about buddies, we made a lot of connections- a community!
Friday, January 14, 2011
First Blog!
My class finished reading our class book, A Wrinkle it Time, this week. Many of their thoughts about the book were that it finally got good at the end and now it's over! This made me think about what I could have done to make the learning experience "good" throughout the entire book- which happens to be one of my favorites. Throughout the reading we did quick writes, sketches, identified similes and metaphors, defined new vocabulary and discussed the plot, characters and settings.
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