Today's class was not about streaming, but we had a really great discussion, dare I say "tangent" which I got so much value from. During our article discussion, about a balanced approach to mathematics, our group consensus, was there wasn't much new from that article, the whole point is math shouldn't be so focused on computational skills as it was in the past, but should be balance of making sense of math, doing math, and using it. Doing math would be the equivalent of an algorithm. For example, in class our instructor gave us the example of 18x5, and to solve it without using pencil and paper. One of classmates, used the algorithm, and the instructor questioned him on it, for example he said carry the "4" where the 4 is really forty, and 5x1 is really 5x10+ 4= 54, which would screwup the algorithm. Making sense of math would be to have a conceptual understanding, in other words, the points I referred to in the previous sentence rather than just the algorithm.
There was a great resource our instructor referred us to, Nix the tricks, which covers many common algorithms, and covers the conceptual understanding. For example, it gives the example of rounding, when it's 5 you automatically round up, but in the real world, in science you round down when you see a 5 (in other words, the algorithm doesn't always work!). It also gives these algorithms cute names such as "backflips and cartwheels" for improper fractions to represent them as division.
I asked some questions in class relevant to my practice as an educator
1) How would you justify streaming a grade 8 student into academic/applied math to a parent? (since I would have to be making this recommendation around January of next year, that's another insight I gained today, apparently that recommendation needs to be made in January!)
Vel's response was, level 3 achievement, I was surprised expecting it to be level 2, and I can imagine if one were to strictly follow that, many students would be recommended for applied. However, he did mention that's not the entire picture. I do recall a colleague of mine, who taught grade 8 and recommended applied, and that student came back at him later saying she was fine at math. So you never know, things change
Another interesting point Vel mentioned was that patterning and algebra is the strand that is most highly correlated with success in grade 9 academic math, so grade 8 teachers should try to cover that strand by January, and use that strand to help them make their recommendation
One of my classmates asked an interesting question about how giving students "realistic" advice re: career choice, i.e. should they go into engineering/science, and if so, they need to take university level grade 11 math, and advanced functions and calculus. This seems to conflict with the concept of "growth mindset", however, our instructor mentioned that growth mindset is based on a zone of proximal development but the effort has to be there. And one could argue, that even if the effort is there, and a student has a growth mindset, they might not be able to succeed in university level math and become an engineer. This connects to my earlier post about growth mindset being a lie, but that's a point we could debate on all day and would never come to consensus.
Another Aha! moment was Vel credited his success in math to his dad asking him everyday after school what he did in math. Not every student has this opportunity, but as teachers we do have this opportunity, i.e. we can ask them how math class was and what they are learning. I did this when I taught grade 8 language last semester, but didn't do it consistently, as I didn't make any connection to student achievement. The main idea is why have to "nix the algorithms", because while that may have been the best way for us to learn it, it may not be the best way for students to learn it because they may not have the home support of parents asking them to reflect on what they learned at school.
I would like to extend the concept of reflection, or I should say "pause and reflect", because it requires you to take time to do this, to life in general. I'm currently reading a book by John Maxwell, the 15 laws of growth, and this morning on my commute to OISE, I read a chapter on pausing and reflecting, and it's a good strategy as an educator to improve their teaching practice, and can apply to any field/craft.
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Friday, July 15, 2016
Day 7/8 - Assessment and Rich tasks
This post will cover wed & thurs, assessment and rich tasks. The article on assessment was about triangulation and COP, cops stands for conversation, observation, product. I have never heard those terms before, and one of my group members said the York Region asked her about those in her interview and expected her to know it. I also heard several of my classmates say their principals want to see learning goals as well as success criteria posted in the classroom. However, we also discussed how in an inquiry lesson, the learning goal should be shared at the end, and if a goal is to be shared at the beginning, it is a process goal. Therefore, if an administrator really wants to see a learning goal presented at the beginning of the lesson, that's how you do it. And in an ideal classroom, learning goals are presented every day, but in reality that doesn't always happen.
Our instructor made reference to a teacher, Mr. So, who blogs and taught grade 6 math. He didn't even do marks until midterms and finals, and instead asked for portfolios. According to his experience, his students assessed themselves 5% lower than he would of, so anyone who thinks allowing students to assess themselves means they would give themselves higher marks, that's not necessarily true. Plus, ultimately it's up to the teacher to see if the students are assessing themselves fairly according to the success criteria.
It seems like there is a trend away from marks, one of our classmates said that England has done away with them for elementary, and apparently the Ottawa board, as well as BC, don't do marks for midterms, only do them for finals, and at midterms, the mark is "incomplete". However, in grade 12, second semester, universities look at those marks, so they put in a mark for the midterm. If that practice were to carry over into elementary, you wouldn't have to give students a mark all year, until the very end, and just give feedback, but of course, that would have to be approved at a board level.
Another big aha! moment I got from yesterday's assessment discussion was you don't really have to do a summative assessment (assessment "of" learning) very often. One of my group mates, in fact made the observation that she was assessing "too much", in the sense that assessment = marks. So she was doing too much assessment of learning. Formative assessment should always be occurring.
Our instructor showed us a cartoon at the very beginning of the assessment lesson, with a principal asking a teacher to drop into a box, all evidence of teaching practice. I think it might be a challenge for a lot of teachers to do that, unless they are being TPA'ed (evaluated). Our instructor said that ideally the administrator would talk to all the students in his class, and I think that's the best way to assess one's teaching practice. Of course, you can observe the class, but that tends to be a "dog and pony show", an acronym I picked up from teacher's college, in which you prepare a super awesome lesson during teaching placement when being evaluated by your faculty advisor. And of course, there should be some documentation to show your administration but that's not the entire picture, talking to the students should be the ultimate measure of a teacher's effectiveness (not meticulous documentation) because ultimately our role as educators is to improve student success
Our instructor made reference to a teacher, Mr. So, who blogs and taught grade 6 math. He didn't even do marks until midterms and finals, and instead asked for portfolios. According to his experience, his students assessed themselves 5% lower than he would of, so anyone who thinks allowing students to assess themselves means they would give themselves higher marks, that's not necessarily true. Plus, ultimately it's up to the teacher to see if the students are assessing themselves fairly according to the success criteria.
It seems like there is a trend away from marks, one of our classmates said that England has done away with them for elementary, and apparently the Ottawa board, as well as BC, don't do marks for midterms, only do them for finals, and at midterms, the mark is "incomplete". However, in grade 12, second semester, universities look at those marks, so they put in a mark for the midterm. If that practice were to carry over into elementary, you wouldn't have to give students a mark all year, until the very end, and just give feedback, but of course, that would have to be approved at a board level.
Another big aha! moment I got from yesterday's assessment discussion was you don't really have to do a summative assessment (assessment "of" learning) very often. One of my group mates, in fact made the observation that she was assessing "too much", in the sense that assessment = marks. So she was doing too much assessment of learning. Formative assessment should always be occurring.
Our instructor showed us a cartoon at the very beginning of the assessment lesson, with a principal asking a teacher to drop into a box, all evidence of teaching practice. I think it might be a challenge for a lot of teachers to do that, unless they are being TPA'ed (evaluated). Our instructor said that ideally the administrator would talk to all the students in his class, and I think that's the best way to assess one's teaching practice. Of course, you can observe the class, but that tends to be a "dog and pony show", an acronym I picked up from teacher's college, in which you prepare a super awesome lesson during teaching placement when being evaluated by your faculty advisor. And of course, there should be some documentation to show your administration but that's not the entire picture, talking to the students should be the ultimate measure of a teacher's effectiveness (not meticulous documentation) because ultimately our role as educators is to improve student success
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Day 5/6 - Homework, and words of wisdom from Meyer & Small
This post will cover my reflections from today & yesterday. Today we covered questioning and yesterday we covered mathematical thinking.
Yesterday we saw two videos, a Ted Talk by Dan Meyer which my instructor has shown many times in his classes and has seen many times at workshops, it's great to have a transformative math teacher on a TED talk! Dan references a TV sitcom, 2.5 men, in which all the problems are simple, and he says this has fostered an "impatience with irresolution". However, math reasoning requires patient problem solving. He says 90% of his prep time is spent taking textbook questions and reformulating them. He also references Einstein in that the formulation of problems is more important than the solution, and therefore let the students formulate the question, or at least develop the substeps to the initial framework of the question provided by the teacher. This reminds me of my 3 part lesson which I submitted today, in which our question in the action part, has no numbers in it, and it's up to the students to create those numbers. Dan demonstrates how he takes a complex textbook problem on filling a tank with water, and strips it down to its bare essentials. Our group was discussing this video, and determining the three most important things we learned from it, and one of us mentioned how the textbook is not necessarily "evil", but it can be used appropriately to formulate questions. I also like how Dan refers to intuition, and that everyone is on a level playing field in terms of tuition for a well formulated question. Our instructor Vel refers to this "level playing field" as "everyone playing in the sandbox".
After the Dan Meyer video, we saw a video by Marian Small, in which she states that if kids were curious they wouldn't ask why are we doing this? They're asking why because they are bored! Therefore, what I can conclude from this, is plan engaging lessons which have multiple points of entry, and students won't be asking how this applies to real life, because they will enjoy doing math for the sake of math itself.
Several interesting insights to share from today's class:
-Our instructor normally shares learning goals at end of lesson during consolidation, our group was discussing this, how it doesn't make sense to state it at the beginning for an inquiry based lesson, and when Vel stated this, that really drove the point home, and confirmed our groups intuition was right!
-Vel on homework, he doesn't expect his kids to do it, and has to cover everything they need to learn during class, they can't be expected to learn on their own at home, he tells the story of how he had a very busy high school life, and had no time to do homework, however, he also mentions that while the research is mixed in regards to homework, there is consensus that it is beneficial for upper level math and sciences
-Vel also referenced a book "5 practices for orchestrating productive mathematical discussions", definitely a book worth reading, and he said it had a major influence on his teaching practice
-Vel on standardized testing (this was from yesterday)- EQAO is a reflection of teacher's teaching, not the students learning, it is worth 0-10% for grade 9, Vel and his department decided not to count it for any marks, some teachers say it should count for marks so students would take it more seriously, but research shows this is not true, Vel mentioned that EQAO can be used to guide teaching practice, for example, if EQAO scores show geometry was really low, then teachers need to spend more time on that unit rather than rushing through it at the end of the semester
Yesterday we saw two videos, a Ted Talk by Dan Meyer which my instructor has shown many times in his classes and has seen many times at workshops, it's great to have a transformative math teacher on a TED talk! Dan references a TV sitcom, 2.5 men, in which all the problems are simple, and he says this has fostered an "impatience with irresolution". However, math reasoning requires patient problem solving. He says 90% of his prep time is spent taking textbook questions and reformulating them. He also references Einstein in that the formulation of problems is more important than the solution, and therefore let the students formulate the question, or at least develop the substeps to the initial framework of the question provided by the teacher. This reminds me of my 3 part lesson which I submitted today, in which our question in the action part, has no numbers in it, and it's up to the students to create those numbers. Dan demonstrates how he takes a complex textbook problem on filling a tank with water, and strips it down to its bare essentials. Our group was discussing this video, and determining the three most important things we learned from it, and one of us mentioned how the textbook is not necessarily "evil", but it can be used appropriately to formulate questions. I also like how Dan refers to intuition, and that everyone is on a level playing field in terms of tuition for a well formulated question. Our instructor Vel refers to this "level playing field" as "everyone playing in the sandbox".
After the Dan Meyer video, we saw a video by Marian Small, in which she states that if kids were curious they wouldn't ask why are we doing this? They're asking why because they are bored! Therefore, what I can conclude from this, is plan engaging lessons which have multiple points of entry, and students won't be asking how this applies to real life, because they will enjoy doing math for the sake of math itself.
Several interesting insights to share from today's class:
-Our instructor normally shares learning goals at end of lesson during consolidation, our group was discussing this, how it doesn't make sense to state it at the beginning for an inquiry based lesson, and when Vel stated this, that really drove the point home, and confirmed our groups intuition was right!
-Vel on homework, he doesn't expect his kids to do it, and has to cover everything they need to learn during class, they can't be expected to learn on their own at home, he tells the story of how he had a very busy high school life, and had no time to do homework, however, he also mentions that while the research is mixed in regards to homework, there is consensus that it is beneficial for upper level math and sciences
-Vel also referenced a book "5 practices for orchestrating productive mathematical discussions", definitely a book worth reading, and he said it had a major influence on his teaching practice
-Vel on standardized testing (this was from yesterday)- EQAO is a reflection of teacher's teaching, not the students learning, it is worth 0-10% for grade 9, Vel and his department decided not to count it for any marks, some teachers say it should count for marks so students would take it more seriously, but research shows this is not true, Vel mentioned that EQAO can be used to guide teaching practice, for example, if EQAO scores show geometry was really low, then teachers need to spend more time on that unit rather than rushing through it at the end of the semester
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Day 4 - Marion Small - How to differentiate instruction the "easy" way
Today we were assigned an article about open questions and parallel tasks, two ways to differentiate instruction in mathematics. These are things I heard about before but didn't understand too well. Our group leader said the challenge with differentiated instruction was you have to create different lesson plans even if it's within the same grade (reminds me of how yesterday's post talked about the challenges of preparing lessons for split grades). However, with open questions, it makes this process of differentiation much more efficient, as the differentiation falls upon the student rather than the teacher. As for parallel tasks, it's not a matter of coming up with entirely problems, but rather using the same problem but just changing the values.
The challenge of creating a lesson plan that uses these engaging questions was brought up in our discussion. It's so easy to fall back upon traditional teaching, i.e. paper and pencil work, especially when things get busy, and this applies whether you are a rookie teacher or seasoned veteran. However, we also watched a video by Marion Small, in which she tells a story of how she cotaught with another teacher who was more "traditional", and she saw that some students responded better to that style of teaching than her more open, progressive, "out there" style. So the point she made, was the people who are "linear", have to shift to more "open thinking", whereas the "free thinkers" like her, sometimes, have to revert to teaching where they just tell students what to do and let them do it. The main idea is there needs to be balance in your teaching style, and coming from Marion Small that means a lot.
Our instructor also mentioned how he taught the MYP program, which prepares students for IB. He said there are day by day lesson plans, and he was following them to the letter and felt really good as a rookie teacher. However, when he asked his colleague where she was it, she told him she was way behind. She told him, well you get it, but do they get it?? So that's where our instructor learned, the following principle: "It doesn't matter how quickly you get through the curriculum, it matters how quickly your students get through the curriculum"
Some other points to share:
The following three experts will be referenced throughout the course, and are considered the transformative thinkers of mathematics (so study their work further)
1) Marion Small
2) Jo Boaler
3) Dan Meyer
Our instructor mentioned that anticipating student responses is the most time intensive part of his teaching practice and this is a more recent change, within the last year. The reason for doing this is because if he doesn't, he'll have a tendency to just choose one or two examples. Whereas if he anticipates responses, he'll share a more diverse range of thinking with the class.
The challenge of creating a lesson plan that uses these engaging questions was brought up in our discussion. It's so easy to fall back upon traditional teaching, i.e. paper and pencil work, especially when things get busy, and this applies whether you are a rookie teacher or seasoned veteran. However, we also watched a video by Marion Small, in which she tells a story of how she cotaught with another teacher who was more "traditional", and she saw that some students responded better to that style of teaching than her more open, progressive, "out there" style. So the point she made, was the people who are "linear", have to shift to more "open thinking", whereas the "free thinkers" like her, sometimes, have to revert to teaching where they just tell students what to do and let them do it. The main idea is there needs to be balance in your teaching style, and coming from Marion Small that means a lot.
Our instructor also mentioned how he taught the MYP program, which prepares students for IB. He said there are day by day lesson plans, and he was following them to the letter and felt really good as a rookie teacher. However, when he asked his colleague where she was it, she told him she was way behind. She told him, well you get it, but do they get it?? So that's where our instructor learned, the following principle: "It doesn't matter how quickly you get through the curriculum, it matters how quickly your students get through the curriculum"
Some other points to share:
The following three experts will be referenced throughout the course, and are considered the transformative thinkers of mathematics (so study their work further)
1) Marion Small
2) Jo Boaler
3) Dan Meyer
Our instructor mentioned that anticipating student responses is the most time intensive part of his teaching practice and this is a more recent change, within the last year. The reason for doing this is because if he doesn't, he'll have a tendency to just choose one or two examples. Whereas if he anticipates responses, he'll share a more diverse range of thinking with the class.
Day 3 - Big Ideas - How big is "too big"??
I facilitated my group discussion today, the article was the big idea article, by Randall Charles, it was a long article, 16 pages, and we only had to read the first four pages, because the rest of the article was examples of big ideas, and our instructor didn't like that, because when we are given big ideas on a silver platter, we have a tendency to make our thinking fit into it, whereas if we develop the big ideas on our own, it is more meaningful and we internalize it.
The article itself, I found it very dry and boring and very heavy in the theory. I told my group this at the very beginning. And it was nice to have my hunches confirmed when our instructor said today was the most "challenging" day, it terms of content, which to me is a euphemism for "dry and boring", however, dry and boring doesn't mean unimportant.
I started off the discussion by communicating my background knowledge of the topic, I first heard the concept of the big idea, when I was in teacher's college, about 8 years ago. It was in a science class (which was my teachable), and I remember the instructor talking about the new science curriculum and "big ideas". I mentioned how the science and social studies have the big ideas right in the curriculum documents much like they were laid out in Mr. Charles' document, but nothing like that exists for math, as the curriculum is due for a revamp. So the challenge is for teachers to come up with the big ideas on their own, and as the article states, there is no consensus on the big ideas.
I also brought up the question to my group, how big is too big for a big idea, because the article mentions that if an idea is too big, its usefulness diminishes. Our instructor said an idea is too big if it covers all the content strands. However, a big idea can be too small if it is restricted within a strand, as the article says that articulating big ideas by content strands is not necessary, and the ideas are "big" because they connect several strands.
The main thing to understand is the big ideas are all about connections. The article even references Hibert & Carpenter saying "the degree of understanding is determined by the number and strength of the connections". In our group discussion, it was mentioned that it's hard to make these connections and model them for your students, when your content knowledge isn't deep. This would apply to teachers teaching the course for the first time. However, it becomes easier to do this once you teach the course several times.
The topic of split/classes came up during our discussion, I never planned for this to happen, it just came up which is pretty cool, and that was my big "aha" moment which I shared with the class (as a facilitator I was obligated to report our groups "findings"). I mentioned how in split classes, or even spec ed classes which have split levels within the class, language is pretty straightforward for teachers to program for, whereas math requires them to go to the different curriculums and teach them separately, or at least that was the direction I was given by the MART (methods and resource teacher, or head spec ed teacher) at the school I recently taught at (and she is really experienced).
However, if you were to teach spec ed and split classes math from the lens of the "big ideas", it would be more palatable to teachers from a programming perspective similar to how language is. The challenge is coming up with those big ideas- we did that as a class today, and it took some time, and was great to do it in a group. In a school, that might prove to be a challenge, as it would require all teachers in a grade team to meet on their own time, unless their school provides specific release time (which requires an economic cost in terms of supply teachers).
I did mention to my group that at my school, the grade teams were released during assemblies to give them opportunities to meet and plan (and no release time/supply teachers required!). But not every school does things that way. If it's not realistic to expect teachers to meet each other on their own time after school, when many of them have family obligations, which begs the question, "how can we facilitate opportunities for teachers to meet together and collaborate on big ideas??" Even in this mathematics course, we have allotted time to work on group assignments, because even our instructor does not expect us to meet each other on our own time after class is done to work on assignments.
Finally, the topic of assessment came up, just like it did yesterday, and even though we have a separate day coming up just for assessment, I would like to reflect on my big aha moments here, because that's what help me learn effectively
During our discussion, one of my group members mentioned that her principal told her not to sweat over covering all the specific expectations, and just assess/teach based on the overall expectations. This idea was confirmed by our instructor who said we look at the curriculum through the lens of a big idea, our job is not to go down the specific expectations like a checklist, which is what your traditional test do, as they focus on specific expectations. Our job is to make connections between expectations and assess overall expectations. And the article mentions big ideas, which are all about connections, so there is a text to world connection for you! (text = article, world = something our instructor said).
A couple of other "nuggets" I would like to share:
Instead of telling students "show me your work so I can give you partial marks" ask them to "show your thinking so I know what question to ask to get back your thinking"
To answer the question "Why do I need to know this?", math doesn't have many real-life applications, so purpose of learning mathematics is to grow your brain, expand your thinking, I'm going to make a text-world connection here, that idea is from our instructor and it reminds of an idea I read in a book many years ago (I forgot the name of book and author, but I remember the idea) which is "mathematics is like weightlifting for your brain".
Research shows learning is done through osmosis, so if you can get 20% of the students to understand something the rest will understand by osmosis, so in the classroom, you can have chart paper all over the walls and have students write their thinking on the chart paper, so other students seated at the tables can see the thinking.
The article itself, I found it very dry and boring and very heavy in the theory. I told my group this at the very beginning. And it was nice to have my hunches confirmed when our instructor said today was the most "challenging" day, it terms of content, which to me is a euphemism for "dry and boring", however, dry and boring doesn't mean unimportant.
I started off the discussion by communicating my background knowledge of the topic, I first heard the concept of the big idea, when I was in teacher's college, about 8 years ago. It was in a science class (which was my teachable), and I remember the instructor talking about the new science curriculum and "big ideas". I mentioned how the science and social studies have the big ideas right in the curriculum documents much like they were laid out in Mr. Charles' document, but nothing like that exists for math, as the curriculum is due for a revamp. So the challenge is for teachers to come up with the big ideas on their own, and as the article states, there is no consensus on the big ideas.
I also brought up the question to my group, how big is too big for a big idea, because the article mentions that if an idea is too big, its usefulness diminishes. Our instructor said an idea is too big if it covers all the content strands. However, a big idea can be too small if it is restricted within a strand, as the article says that articulating big ideas by content strands is not necessary, and the ideas are "big" because they connect several strands.
The main thing to understand is the big ideas are all about connections. The article even references Hibert & Carpenter saying "the degree of understanding is determined by the number and strength of the connections". In our group discussion, it was mentioned that it's hard to make these connections and model them for your students, when your content knowledge isn't deep. This would apply to teachers teaching the course for the first time. However, it becomes easier to do this once you teach the course several times.
The topic of split/classes came up during our discussion, I never planned for this to happen, it just came up which is pretty cool, and that was my big "aha" moment which I shared with the class (as a facilitator I was obligated to report our groups "findings"). I mentioned how in split classes, or even spec ed classes which have split levels within the class, language is pretty straightforward for teachers to program for, whereas math requires them to go to the different curriculums and teach them separately, or at least that was the direction I was given by the MART (methods and resource teacher, or head spec ed teacher) at the school I recently taught at (and she is really experienced).
However, if you were to teach spec ed and split classes math from the lens of the "big ideas", it would be more palatable to teachers from a programming perspective similar to how language is. The challenge is coming up with those big ideas- we did that as a class today, and it took some time, and was great to do it in a group. In a school, that might prove to be a challenge, as it would require all teachers in a grade team to meet on their own time, unless their school provides specific release time (which requires an economic cost in terms of supply teachers).
I did mention to my group that at my school, the grade teams were released during assemblies to give them opportunities to meet and plan (and no release time/supply teachers required!). But not every school does things that way. If it's not realistic to expect teachers to meet each other on their own time after school, when many of them have family obligations, which begs the question, "how can we facilitate opportunities for teachers to meet together and collaborate on big ideas??" Even in this mathematics course, we have allotted time to work on group assignments, because even our instructor does not expect us to meet each other on our own time after class is done to work on assignments.
Finally, the topic of assessment came up, just like it did yesterday, and even though we have a separate day coming up just for assessment, I would like to reflect on my big aha moments here, because that's what help me learn effectively
During our discussion, one of my group members mentioned that her principal told her not to sweat over covering all the specific expectations, and just assess/teach based on the overall expectations. This idea was confirmed by our instructor who said we look at the curriculum through the lens of a big idea, our job is not to go down the specific expectations like a checklist, which is what your traditional test do, as they focus on specific expectations. Our job is to make connections between expectations and assess overall expectations. And the article mentions big ideas, which are all about connections, so there is a text to world connection for you! (text = article, world = something our instructor said).
A couple of other "nuggets" I would like to share:
Instead of telling students "show me your work so I can give you partial marks" ask them to "show your thinking so I know what question to ask to get back your thinking"
To answer the question "Why do I need to know this?", math doesn't have many real-life applications, so purpose of learning mathematics is to grow your brain, expand your thinking, I'm going to make a text-world connection here, that idea is from our instructor and it reminds of an idea I read in a book many years ago (I forgot the name of book and author, but I remember the idea) which is "mathematics is like weightlifting for your brain".
Research shows learning is done through osmosis, so if you can get 20% of the students to understand something the rest will understand by osmosis, so in the classroom, you can have chart paper all over the walls and have students write their thinking on the chart paper, so other students seated at the tables can see the thinking.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Day 2 - Growth Mindset is a Lie but an empowering one . . .
Today we learned about growth mindset vs fixed mindset. I heard about this concept before, and most recently in a podcast back in May (Tom Bilyeu interview on Mike Dillard's podcast) where the Tom said the concept of growth mindset is a "lie", but an empowering lie. In that context it was the belief you can achieve/accomplish anything you set your mind to. In the context of math in the classroom, it would be that you are able to improve your mathematics skills. Whereas a fixed mindset would be, some people are good at math, others aren't, and there's not much you an do about it.
We had a great discussion in our group re: the assigned article. One of the points that came up is how to "teach" our students growth mindset, and I brought up the fact the article mentions a website, www.brainology.com, I never looked into it when I read the article yesterday, and the person facilitating the discussion said it was a paid site. However, I think it would be worth the investment, given the effects of having students buy into the concept of growth mindset, or at the very least recognizing whether they are a fixed mindset or growth mindset, and if fixed, how they can switch towards growth. Initially, in my class, I would teach a lesson on fixed vs growth mindset, the first week of class, probably on the second day in addition to reviewing math. Our instructor does this for his classes, and uses a t-chart to show the differences.
Our group also had a great discussion on how grade 8 teachers try to prepare their kids for high school, and do a lot of tests, but that's not necessarily what high school teachers do, although I think it's safe to say the majority do. Even our instructor who has consulted with gr 6/7/8 math teachers said in gr 6/7 they do a lot of cooperative learning structures, but then all of a sudden the grade 8 teachers sit their students in rows and have them do tests, in order to prepare them for high school.
Our instructor mentioned that along the same lines, high school teachers, try to prepare their students for university, by giving many tests, and at the university level, they have to assess using tests, because they have 400 students. However, these profs know that is not what's best for the students.
Our instructor mentioned two profs, one at Brock who uses a portfolio to assess his 1st year calculus students, and one at Simon Fraser who gets his students to redo quizzes until they eventually get it. So this shift is happening at the university level, and eventually if all profs get on board, it will trickle down to high school, and then to elementary (or rather I should say grade 8). Our instructor said he takes up tests and doesn't return marks until after the test has been taken up. So he uses tests as a learning opportunity, as assessment is meant to improve student learning, and if you don't take up the test, there is no point. I shall do the same in my program for gr 8 math, and perhaps not even have the tests count towards report card mark.
We also had a great discussion re: assessment, and Vel shared some good points with us. He personally underscaffolds as a class (just as Marion Small recommends) and just scaffolds individually for what students need. He also mentioned for assessment, and growth mindset, that a student will be allowed to redo quizzes that deviate from the norm, and one "bad test" won't bring down their entire mark. When he consults with teachers, and they have an issue with this, because they say maybe the student is not good at that strand, his answer is first of all, don't teach in strands, rather teach everything in an integrated manner. Second, he will buy that argument for knowledge/understanding, but not for application, thinking/inquiry, and communication because those abilities can improve over time regardless of strand of math being taught/assessed.
We had a great discussion in our group re: the assigned article. One of the points that came up is how to "teach" our students growth mindset, and I brought up the fact the article mentions a website, www.brainology.com, I never looked into it when I read the article yesterday, and the person facilitating the discussion said it was a paid site. However, I think it would be worth the investment, given the effects of having students buy into the concept of growth mindset, or at the very least recognizing whether they are a fixed mindset or growth mindset, and if fixed, how they can switch towards growth. Initially, in my class, I would teach a lesson on fixed vs growth mindset, the first week of class, probably on the second day in addition to reviewing math. Our instructor does this for his classes, and uses a t-chart to show the differences.
Our group also had a great discussion on how grade 8 teachers try to prepare their kids for high school, and do a lot of tests, but that's not necessarily what high school teachers do, although I think it's safe to say the majority do. Even our instructor who has consulted with gr 6/7/8 math teachers said in gr 6/7 they do a lot of cooperative learning structures, but then all of a sudden the grade 8 teachers sit their students in rows and have them do tests, in order to prepare them for high school.
Our instructor mentioned that along the same lines, high school teachers, try to prepare their students for university, by giving many tests, and at the university level, they have to assess using tests, because they have 400 students. However, these profs know that is not what's best for the students.
Our instructor mentioned two profs, one at Brock who uses a portfolio to assess his 1st year calculus students, and one at Simon Fraser who gets his students to redo quizzes until they eventually get it. So this shift is happening at the university level, and eventually if all profs get on board, it will trickle down to high school, and then to elementary (or rather I should say grade 8). Our instructor said he takes up tests and doesn't return marks until after the test has been taken up. So he uses tests as a learning opportunity, as assessment is meant to improve student learning, and if you don't take up the test, there is no point. I shall do the same in my program for gr 8 math, and perhaps not even have the tests count towards report card mark.
We also had a great discussion re: assessment, and Vel shared some good points with us. He personally underscaffolds as a class (just as Marion Small recommends) and just scaffolds individually for what students need. He also mentioned for assessment, and growth mindset, that a student will be allowed to redo quizzes that deviate from the norm, and one "bad test" won't bring down their entire mark. When he consults with teachers, and they have an issue with this, because they say maybe the student is not good at that strand, his answer is first of all, don't teach in strands, rather teach everything in an integrated manner. Second, he will buy that argument for knowledge/understanding, but not for application, thinking/inquiry, and communication because those abilities can improve over time regardless of strand of math being taught/assessed.
Monday, July 4, 2016
Day 1 - Teen Brain
In response to the article the biology of risk taking by Lisa Price, one of the main ideas in the article that I took note of was "providing adoslescents with sufficient scaffolding, or a good balance of support and autonomy may be particularly important".
To make a connection to this point, our instructor Vel quoted Marion Small, that we should not "over scaffold" as a cognitive gap arouses curiosity. The teenage brain is developmentally similar to an adults (as per Price's article) and as per the video we watched in class, some teenage brains are capable of performing great things, like the 16 year old scientist profiled in the video.
However, the major difference between a teen's brain and adult's brain is the development of the prefrontal cortext, which is responsible for executive function, and controlling the limbic system. Since the adolescent's prefrontal cortex is less mature than an adult's, they may engage in impulsive behavior, although the article mentions at the end that 80% of students won't experience any issues. The article refers to risk taking behaviors (i.e. taking drugs) and the video we watch in class, shows some very dangerous acts, but the majority of adolescents won't engage in these behaviors. However, it is important to be aware of the adolescence's willingness to take risks due to changes in their brain, although in general the article and video were not referring to taking risks in the classroom (i.e. volunteering to answer the question the teacher is asking)
I think the main thing to keep in mind as it relates to teaching math in the classroom, is that the teenage mind is capable of solving complex problems, but it also tends to be rebellious in nature.
Our instructor mentioned during the first week of class, he is selling the idea to his class, that he's on their side, and they are a team, with the ultimate goal of improving mathematics. I think it would also be good to create a fictionary "character" to rebel against in the classroom. For example, another parental figure that says adolescents can't do math and don't want to put in any work or effort. It is also good to let students know that you are aware of how adolescents learn differently. I think I will teach a brief mini-lesson on the adolescent brain during my first week of school, so that students know that I "get them". This may be a more effective approach than trying to build relationships through common interests which doesn't allow you to reach all students. Some of the students I've taught that I've built good relations with, I had nothing in common with them. Nonetheless, there's a fine line to walk between too much structure and building connection as we discussed in class. The article mentions that adolescents need structure, yet they resent it.
To make a connection to this point, our instructor Vel quoted Marion Small, that we should not "over scaffold" as a cognitive gap arouses curiosity. The teenage brain is developmentally similar to an adults (as per Price's article) and as per the video we watched in class, some teenage brains are capable of performing great things, like the 16 year old scientist profiled in the video.
However, the major difference between a teen's brain and adult's brain is the development of the prefrontal cortext, which is responsible for executive function, and controlling the limbic system. Since the adolescent's prefrontal cortex is less mature than an adult's, they may engage in impulsive behavior, although the article mentions at the end that 80% of students won't experience any issues. The article refers to risk taking behaviors (i.e. taking drugs) and the video we watch in class, shows some very dangerous acts, but the majority of adolescents won't engage in these behaviors. However, it is important to be aware of the adolescence's willingness to take risks due to changes in their brain, although in general the article and video were not referring to taking risks in the classroom (i.e. volunteering to answer the question the teacher is asking)
I think the main thing to keep in mind as it relates to teaching math in the classroom, is that the teenage mind is capable of solving complex problems, but it also tends to be rebellious in nature.
Our instructor mentioned during the first week of class, he is selling the idea to his class, that he's on their side, and they are a team, with the ultimate goal of improving mathematics. I think it would also be good to create a fictionary "character" to rebel against in the classroom. For example, another parental figure that says adolescents can't do math and don't want to put in any work or effort. It is also good to let students know that you are aware of how adolescents learn differently. I think I will teach a brief mini-lesson on the adolescent brain during my first week of school, so that students know that I "get them". This may be a more effective approach than trying to build relationships through common interests which doesn't allow you to reach all students. Some of the students I've taught that I've built good relations with, I had nothing in common with them. Nonetheless, there's a fine line to walk between too much structure and building connection as we discussed in class. The article mentions that adolescents need structure, yet they resent it.
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