Friday, February 28, 2014

I Believe the Children Are Our Future


Wednesday morning I awoke to a retweet by @Natasha_Neffy which read, "Georgia Senate has passed a bill to withdraw Georgia from Common Core". WHAT! 



 I spiraled into a tizzy thinking about all of the work we have put into getting students to a place of understanding in mathematics. I thought about all of the ineffective teaching practices that were on their way out of the door due to Common Core.  I thought about all the teachers who set aside their fear of change to do what's best for students. 

Common Core has developed a bad reputation. From people believing it is the government "enforcing its rule" upon us, to others believing it confuses students with the mathematics. Common Core has sifted fears and insecurities of many teachers to the surface, exposing them. Instead of admitting these things and having a sense of vulnerability, they have found excuses and remain misinformed. They passed on these fears to parents, who in turn are misinformed. With all of this, Georgia now finds itself in a compromising position. 

Do we compromise the understanding of our students to appease those who are afraid of change?  Do we subject our kids to a life of, "I was never good at math"?  Do we bow to the pressure of the misinform?  Withdrawing from Common Core does just that!  These standards were written to build understanding of math concepts gradually. You would not want to live in a house built in a day, because chances are it would not withstand any storm. So why would we subject our kids to such construction?

Bottomline Georgia Senate, if you believe the children are our future, which they are, what future are you creating for us all?  Have you considered the ramifications of removing critical thinking and understanding by changing from rigorous standards to those which do not allow the building of understanding?

"I believe the children are our future.  Teach them well and let them lead the way, show them all the beauty the possess inside. Give them a sense of pride, to make it easier..." - Whitney Houston

Monday, February 24, 2014

Lessons From Homeschooling

Like other areas of mathematics, teachers too often rely on memory to ensure students, dare I say, understand measurement concepts. We go to various lengths to find the cutest activities for students to complete and encourage them to "Remember the one time we...?"  Only unfortunately they don't remember, some yes, but we weren't aiming for just some.  The connections are not made for all. Why is that?

I have a friend who home schools her four girls.  Before you begin making your judgments about what homeschool is or is not, please hear me out.  One thing I've learned from discussing homeschooling with Dawn is, her girls have authentic experiences with math concepts on a regular basis. Her oldest daughter has a solid understanding of measurement concepts, this I know based on your demonstration of her understanding.  
The pictured tasty treat was made from scratch, by for 11 years old daughter!  From scratch meaning, she didn't drop the contents of a box into a bowl and mix.  She measured the ingredients using tools accurately.  She has adjusted the recipe for make more or less cupcakes, no seriously guys, she made 1 just one cupcake from a recipe meant to make many more.  

So what's my point?  It is the experiences with measurement that help to shape and deepen our understanding of its concepts. What does this look like in a classroom setting?


It looks like activities where students engage with the tools and connect the use of the tools to understanding the concepts. An experience measuring how tall you are compared to your friends or teacher and what you used to determine the heights are retained more than completing a worksheet on "Which item is taller" or "What tool would you use to measure..."  

An activity using student feet to help determine why we have standard units of measure and what they are will aid in students using rulers correctly more than completing pages in a textbook.

Many of these types of activities can be found within resources like Math Solutions' Investigations, Tasks, and Rubrics to Teach and Assess Math; John Van de Walle's Student Centered Mathematics or Math Solutions' Sizing Up Measurement.  If these resources are unavailable to you, take a lesson from homeschooling and create authentic everyday measurement activities to implement in the classroom. 
For more ideas, you can visit my webpage Sensible Mathematics https://sites.google.com/site/sensiblemathematics/.  

Friday, February 14, 2014

Friends with Benefits

Personally and professionally I like to surround myself with people who challenge me, who make me better.  I tend to shy away from the "yes" men and women whose constant approval will create a fixed mindset and leave me with a big head and overgrown ego. Thankfully, I haven't had too many of those relationships. No, I have friends who quite often call me on my nonsense and challenge me to try new things. 

The new thing I'm trying, courtesy of my friends Graham Fletcher, Michael Wiernicki and Turtle Gunn are 3 Act Tasks. I started with the Apple's Solar Farm task, shared in a previous post and since then I've been on a bit of a snowball effect. I've created five more tasks which can be found on  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Are6h0vMbntddGVlQkE2VzgyZkdJb3NBWWwtamhJQXc&usp=docslist_api. These tasks will soon be found on www.101qs.com. Not many coaches in my district have made the shift to this innovative teaching practice that I have. That's one of the many benefits of having friends that challenge you.