Day 9/10 - Streaming

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.