I have arrived at a new school that has an old structure in the math department. We track our math students both by age and supposedly by "ability," starting in 8th grade. There are two levels of math for each age group, the "normal" and the "advanced," yet 90% of the student body are in the supposed advanced class. Added to this pedagogical flashback is the fact that we offer scholarships to high achieving local kids (we're private). We pull some of these kids out of fancy math and science schools only to put them in "9th grade math." We match them with like-aged students not in a class that might challenge these gifted and motivated kids. The result is many shades of not-so-awesome.
While slow to start the wheels of change are beginning to turn. The conversation of how our math program should be shaped is beginning...
So how would you do it? If you could have your choice of how to organize math classes grades 6 and up, how would you do it?
I found this talk brilliant. Let's be honest with our kids. When will they use what we are teaching them? And why are we teaching them the topics that we are teaching? I'll let the video speak for itself.
Today in class I overheard, "I tried it logically at first and then I tried it mathematically." It made me laugh a little, cry a little, and I had to force back the teachery knee jerk reaction, "But math is logical!"
The statement says so much about how our students view math and math class. If math isn't logical then we are doing something wrong, but I guess we already knew that.
While the statement made me sad, was this a case of actions speaking louder than words? The students were doing exactly what they should be doing, talking and working out how to solve a problem. Can a teacher ask for more?
I desperately want to embrace and make use of the smart board in my classrooms, but only if they make my classroom more student-centered or allow me to do things I can't already do given a computer and a projector.
While smart boards are undeniably wonderful eye candy and there are some good uses for them I have recently begun to question the value of the smart board. A quick google image search almost universally shows one person using the smart board and many others watching them... Ugh. That's not what I want my classroom to look like.
Is this photo doctored?
Check out the teachers shadow...
Have smart boards simply become something that teachers expect to have? Are smart boards really changing the way we teach? Are smart boards allowing students to learn more or in different ways? How does a smart board allow a teacher to create a more student-centered classroom? How does a smartboard beat a tablet and projector?
I am not an anti-tech guy, far from it, but I don't want technology for the sake of technology. I want technology that improves on what I can already do or even better lets my students answer questions they couldn't previously answer...
What are you doing in your classroom with a smart board?
I'm looking for a bit of feedback on an investigation. I am teaching an algebra heavy geometry course, we just tackled right angle trig. The kids have seen Pythagorean theorem and such... I need to teach radicals and exponents at some point and this seemed like a reasonable time with areas of polygons and coordinate geometry around the corner.
The objectives of the investigation is for students to:
Develop geometrical meaning of square roots
Develop geometrical meaning for equivalent radical expressions such as:
I must admit most of what is posted is not my idea, but an adaptation of content from Math Alive! Course III.
I was working my way through right angle trig. It was going pretty alright, but I was looking for an exit strategy that would tie in RAT to the new topic... Polygons, Surds, Exponentials. I saw connections to all of them and I was flip flopping between topics unable to choose. Seventeen ideas running through my head... Where's my Ritalin?
There is genius in this video. Maybe not original math genius, but genius all the same. The connection was obvious. Pythagorean theorem and maybe some trig. Best of all students would need to think about lines, angles and triangles. Perfect.
I didn't really like the way the question was framed, felt like he gave away a bit too much (even in the original video, the one above presents the solution), but it does make for a good video. Before class I drew a series of 4 dots on all of the whiteboards, providing spaces for the students to present their results with some semblance of order. Each time an improved result was written up the class was drawn to it and they madly checked each other's math.
I heard things like, "that side is a hypotenuse and the other side is 1, so that side (the hypotenuse) is more than 1!" Or, "you used 0.333 instead of 1 over 3 that's why it didn't work!" Freaking awesome.
30 minutes in, I stopped class and asked how many wanted more time? Almost unanimously they wanted more time. I gave them the option of seeing the answer, but they didn't want it. What more can a teacher ask for? Finally, I ended the 65 minute period with the video and a brief discussion. During which one student asked, "Do mathematicians really play with soap bubbles?" With a twinkle in my eye, I replied, "Yep."
Math is real. Soap bubbles are real. The learning was real. No pseudo-context needed.
