Method to my madness!! Building Journal Pages:

Questions: How do you create a journal page or foldable? Where do you start? How do you come up with it?

I'm not sure if I've written about this yet, but it is definitely on my mind quite a bit. My second year co-teacher always asked, "How do you come up with this?"

The answer to that question has been on my mind all through my third year of teaching. So let me see if I can lay it all out.

Step 1: I start with a general objective, select an assignment, and check to see that it aligns with the quiz and unit assessment.

This strategy evolved from the curriculum director at my previous school. "Keep the end in mind." When planning you want to continually loop through and keep the assignment, quiz, and assessment in mind as you plan a journal page, lesson, activity, etc.

I have several EOC prep books that I use for quizzes and the CSCOPE curriculum for unit assessments. I always start by taking the quiz or assessment myself. I work each problem in as many different ways as I can and note each strategy used. The hardest strategy for me to see is always the logical approach. Usually, this method comes out during the lessons from my students. I know that this idea looks and feels like teaching towards a test, and it probably is, but I do what I can.

Step 2: Now that I know what we're working towards, I take the concept, topic, or objective and begin my research. I look online mostly, reference CSCOPE curriculum, Glencoe textbooks, EOC prep guides, colleagues, etc. I try to reference a minimum of four to make sure I have confirmed my findings.

Step 3: Time to organize. I look at the information that I want to convey to my students and begin to think about the method that would best fit this lesson.

• Are we defining something?
• Is this too much at one time?
• Do I need to break this into mini lessons with guided and independent practice loops? (That's what I did for special right triangles this past year and it worked out great.)
• What will this journal page or foldable contain?
• Will it define and organize the concept, contain a reusable manipulative, be the result of a paper folding activity or lesson, a reference of guided practice, or all of the above?
• What is the point of this journal page and how will it benefit my students?

Once I decide the purpose, I then begin to look for or create a foldable that will organize the information and lesson into sections.This is important to me. I like information to be organized, sectionalized, bolded, boxed, highlighted, etc. Kids tend to remember things like that. A lot of times, we'll end up with glued attachments here and there to accomodate new information or make a little more room.

I can't really explain how I come up with my lesson. I've been told that my wacky brain is hard to follow. Sometimes, the lessons are from colleagues, workshops, or previous experiences that I tweak to fit my agenda. My goal on each journal page is to take an overload of information, organize it, and make it relatable to my students. If you've read previous posts, you'll see where I ask for suggestions on how to make a journal page better.

I'll admit, I am not always this on top of my lessons. Sometimes, I walk in knowing what I need to teach, but not how. My go to "don't know where to start" strategy is to go with a blank white sheet of paper. My students know to use my go to short fold half page foldabable. It's boring but I can expand this, glue attachments, glue it like a pocket for additional stuff, and initially this simple foldable provides three sections for attempting to organize. I use this foldable alot, even if we're not writing much. I don't want to run out of room. (Occasionally, I come up with nothing. I turn to a printed paper lesson. We glue together like a book and then into our journals.)

During the past year, my geometry class actually wrote on a lined page in the journal.... twice maybe. There's never enough room and I like to contain a concept to one page. We actually used 90 of the 100 sheets in the composition book. I did only use the front side, but hope to use the back/opposing side as a reflection, sentence stem, summarizing, something page.

Step 4: Once I know how I want to organize and relate, I create a quick disposable mock up of what I plan the journal page to look like. I scribble an outline and notes to self. This is usually something that I use as a guide to keep me on track and throw away later.

Step 5: (optional) Sometimes, I create a pre fab printable foldable template. This makes journaling go much faster and students are less likely to fall behind or make mistakes. I usually have one foldable completed to show students what we're trying to make. Some students are quick to figure it out and begin to help others. I use solid lines to indicate folds and dotted lines to indicate 'cut here'. This strategy can save time by having the students write less and provides structure to help them better organize the information. However, I am a huge advocate of students writing! I think my students have learned more this past year than the previous two because they wrote everything. I rarely printed definitions, diagrams, illustrations, proofs, etc. It was sometimes hard, but my students were better off. Watching them draw platonic solids and cross sections was entertaining, but extremely difficult. I did give in in the end and printed them off. However, anytime I print something off, I still require students to participate by highlighting, fill in the blank, notating, etc.

Step 6: I teach the lesson. I try to make every step of the process engaging and mathematical. I ask open ended guiding questions before, during, and after the creation of the journal page. (I have developed excellent wait time. It was hard, but I'm quite proud of that.)

Even the foldable itself is a mini math lesson. I try to use mathematical language when referencing folds. It took about half a year to come up with new terms for hot dog and hamburger fold. Actually, a student suggested long or short half fold and I've used it ever since.

One time in geometry, I needed the students to fold a blank piece of paper to get sixteen boxes. They recognized a pattern in the words I was using - one half, one fourth, one eighth, one sixteenth. It turned into a mini lesson on exponential functions.

Is this strategy full proof? Absolutely not! I usually change a journal page up year to year, class period to class period. My students are my guiding force, and they let me know what works. Someone once told me that you have to learn to teach students and not just teach a curriculum.

 

Posted with Blogsy

A Theory to the Success of Algebra 1

Mathematics is a language all its own, right? So why aren't we teaching it as such? You know summertime; it's the time we teachers spend in workshops soaking in the theoretical views of the 'experienced'. I actually really enjoy workshops, specifically when I'm at that table that just explodes with ideas!

Back to the THEORY: If math is a unique language, then I should be teaching students to listen, write, read, and speak its language.

I realize that I spend so much time focusing on one component-writing the math. I need to teach fluency in math that focuses on all four of these areas.

I have observed several foreign language teachers come and go. The great teachers have their students fluent in these four areas. Students read, write, listen, and speak the language.

As I think back to high school, I was an excellent memorizer. I didn't really know how to read the notation or why solutions were written a specific way, but I could tell you what I needed to put where based on context clues. Then when I got to college, I had one of those professors. He spoke, read, wrote, and listened for the language of mathematics. He expected the same from us. I struggled like you wouldn't believe; however, after I graduated and entered the world of education for mathematics, I noticed the difference in my math language and others. Now, I am not an expert or near perfect, but I notice that my students have a higher level of math skills because I hold myself to high standards when using the language of mathematics.

GOAL: Even though I can read, write, listen, and speak the language of mathematics, I need to expect that from my students.

CONCLUSION: This is all just a theory based on self reflection and observation. We'll see how it unfolds over this next year.

 

Posted with Blogsy

NON-RESPONSIVE TEACHING STRATEGY!!!

CONCEPT: As students are having a 'class congress'-generating the big ideas from a previously completed investigation, the teacher/facilitator monitors their discussion with zero validation.

INITIAL RESPONSE: I watched some videos of a teacher using non responsive techniques, and I was horrified. The kids would be crushed after providing an intensive explanation of their results and the teacher would just turn and walk away. Even if the student was spot on; she would simply turn and walk away. Now, this wasn't the only interaction the teacher had with her students. She would guide them to clarify their math terminology, dismiss outrageous ideas, and reroute their detours to continue working towards the objective. I even know how the students feel because this presenter-Pam Harris has been using this technique on us for the past three days. My colleague and I were very upset and trying to shut down, just like what our students will try to do.

HOWEVER, REALIZATION: As the presenter continued to have us process this method, with the objective question in mind-"How does this benefit the community aspect of your classroom?"; we made some discoveries. I realized that I was looking for that 'teacher pet' validation. When that enthusiastic validation is given, the classroom brainstorm usually stops, and students then try to mirror their inferences to the student that was validated. I also became more open to all inputs from other colleagues. I observed closely and listened intently looking for the correct conclusion since I had become uncertain of my own thoughts. As I heard other's thoughts and realized others agreed with my conclusions, I became self validated and had acquired new understanding from other perspectives.

CONCLUSION: The non-responsive strategy is a method suggested to be used at the beginning of the year to level the playing field for all students. You want the student to be in charge of their learning and looking to get what they need out of the lesson and not what the teacher wants. We all have exceptional teacher pets that know what to say and how to get super enthusiastic validation from us, but what about the quiet student that knows much more than the teacher will ever know because he has assumed from day one that the teacher pet can handle it.

POINT: Something that I will consider using with the objective of building a classroom community that expects all students to respect each others' thoughts and ideas equally.

QUOTE: "Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success." Henry Ford

 

REFERENCED:

• Class Congress - This is a class discussion strategy based on the International Congress of Mathematics.
• Pam Harris

This is a strategy that I am still unsure of; please let me know of experiences and reflections that you know of. If you have another understanding of this strategy, I would love to hear.

 

Posted with Blogsy