Week 6 Report & 6 Week Reflection

Week 6 Report & 6 Week Reflection

            It feels like just yesterday when I walked into my second-year math class, pessimistic and unenthusiastic. I can safely say that I come out alive and with a brand-new mindset about ability to teach math and do math!

            This week we looked at math in the ‘real world’ in our mindset module. We talked about how financial literacy is important for students because it connects them to the ‘real world,’ but we also said it was important to connect all math that students learn to the ‘real world.’  It occurred to me that teachers use data management in the real world on a daily basis. Part of a teacher’s job is to continually assess and evaluate how students are performing. Teachers, throughout the day, collect data in the classroom to assess student achievement. From this data, teachers can then adjust their teaching to meet the needs of their students. At the time, I didn’t realize that this week’s topic was going to be about report card writing and assessment! After reading the Growing Success document and watching a video about descriptive feedback, it became clear how everything fits together.

            Descriptive feedback can be used to help students understand what they did well, and what their next steps are. We need to be mindful that we’re not using descriptive feedback to praise our students for “being smart” because this can have negative results as we saw in our week 2 modules. We focused a lot about practicing giving good descriptive feedback this week when we looked at EQAO problems in class and when we talked about it in our webinar. It was really helpful to write descriptive feedback using a three-step model: First stating what the student did well, then saying something we wonder about, and finally sharing next steps for that student. Descriptive feedback is one way, we learned, that we can justify giving marks to students.

Descriptive feedback is also one way to prompt conversations in math, which is one thing we found important to do in our week 4 module. Talking about math can really make a large difference in student success! The research suggests that students who talk about their math do significantly better in math. We saw this in our own math classroom when we were placed in math congress groups to talk about our strategy and thinking process about a math problem. We found that there was more than one way to do something or represent something.

            Representing and drawing was another thing we focused on in week 5. Using visuals and manipulatives are excellent ways of teaching or scaffolding a concept to help students visualize it better. Gizmos are a great way to incorporate visuals and technology. Representing and drawing are some ways that we can keep our students focused and engaged. We were encouraged in our own class to represent our problem solving in different ways to see the connections between concepts and learn about alternative ways of solving a problem.

 We learned a lot of other ways to keep our students engaged such as looking at video games and using technology in the classroom. We agreed that the focus of a math app or game shouldn’t be on speed and practicing calculations. Instead, it should be about being able to understand the concept behind it and practice number flexibility. A good math app or video game is one where students can use multiple skills simultaneously while offering different levels to meet different skill levels. We used some fun games and video games in the classroom which were really engaging and fun to do!

We also got to experience first-hand what blended learning looks like in the classroom. We were able to learn the SAMR model through an online module in class which brought us through the process of using technology to learn. We also read about the possibility of using Interactive whiteboards in the classroom. Throughout our course, we saw how valuable a Smart Board could be in the classroom to foster student engagement, learning, and participation.

In our blended learning lesson (week 5), we also got to see how technology can be used to assess our students’ knowledge and understanding. We got to experience using ChatterPix by recording a video of an object with a mouth and speaking into it to share our understanding of what we learned that day. I found this to be extremely engaging for students and helpful for teachers to gauge where student understanding is at. There are a number of great technological tools we can use to both assess our students and make them engaged. Here is a great video of a teacher using Plickers in his classroom to assess and engage his students:

WOSUColumbus, director. Effective Teaching with Technology: Grade 4, Mathematics. YouTube, YouTube, 29 Aug. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=-llFvGo-EAs.

I think one of the most important things I learned throughout this course is to look at math with an open mindset. In order to encourage students to do well in math and squash stereotypes that only certain people can do math, I need to show that I have an open mindset and ensure that everything I say and do in my classroom is with an open mindset. I learned that everyone is capable of doing math at their own pace and with their own strategies. We need to ensure that we have an open mind about re-dos in math and using homework only to encourage thoughtful student understanding. We need to find ways to make homework meaningful, and here are 9 suggestions about how to make it better.  We need to value and encourage student conversations over products. We need to use technology to our advantage. This will help students feel more confident about doing math, which is our goal as educators.