Modeling Problems that Bring the Common Core to Life
Instructor: Maria Hernandez
Reflective Summary by Diana Tunnell 6/27/14 Review and Wrap-up Our final class provided an opportunity to reflect on the activities we covered in the week and to tie up loose ends with questions from the class. We completed evaluations on the workshop for Maria. We also had discussion on what resources are available to continue our quest to provide great educational opportunities for our students and development/recognition opportunities so that we can be better enabled to do that. Below are highlights of that discussion. Potential for sources of funding for classroom needs: Although not extremely expensive, financial resources are needed to acquire the useful technologies we worked with this week. Many schools are on a very tight spending limit. Donorschoose.org was a recommended site to consider. Teachers create a post describing the item needed, what it would be used for, and how it would be beneficial to the school community. Then anyone familiar with the site has the opportunity to search through requests and may decide to fund them. Research is validating the need for stronger math/science skills in our graduating students to meet projected work force needs. To help support that cause recently there are more math/science partnership grants being advertised that one can search for as well as National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants to review. These also apply to funding for professional development. Professional Development Opportunities: National Board certification: National Board Certification became the most rigorous, coveted and respected professional certification available in education. See http://www.nbpts.org/ for more information. In some states National Board Certification does allow for a pay raise. The renewal period is every ten years. There are lots of interesting and random professional development workshops available at no cost. One Maria mentioned is an electric guitar building class (http://www.guitarbuilding.org/). Teachers spend a week at this STEM workshop sponsored by the NSF and then return home with a kit to build an electric guitar with their students. Another opportunity I found appealing is the Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellows program. Selected teachers receive a years salary, housing and a position to work with a federal agency like the DOE, NSF, NOAA, etc for a year bringing current classroom experience into the education policy arena. Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Two people from each state are selected. The application period is every other year. https://www.paemst.org/
Conferences
A number of well-respected conferences occur both at a local, regional and national level every year. They are great opportunities for professional development workshops and networking with other teachers. Recommendations include:
-NCTM National Conference: Boston, April 2015 -TCM @NCSSM 1.5 days in January 2015 -NSF STEM conference (in St Louis last year)
We reviewed resources for Common Core standards.
We also discussed sequencing of the activities. Maria reminded us of the importance of motivating a topic with an application. Data can be found or collected plentifully. Ask students what would we need to model for particular questions they have on the topic. Make a list of mathematical topics that you teach and then plug in some of the activities where they fit. Little Nuggets: Give students each a piece of paper with a different data point (example ,number of trucks produced in various countries). Tell them to get up and place themselves in a scale by order. When you have hundreds to millions, one can see they cant fit to scale in the classroom. So now teach logarithms. Gail Burrill gave a good NCTM talk on logs Michigan which may be useful to find for this activity. ASSESSMENT One of our goals as educators is to inspire a desire for success in mathematics. Assessment should be designed to encourage progress toward that goal and not to provide a basis for minimum accomplishment needed. To motivate commitment in learning, teachers do need to present a deliverable that students are responsible to complete for any learning activity. Maria noted that there are various ways to assess and she referenced material from Carmel Schettinos CWIC sessions that would apply nicely. We were encouraged to assess in prose, graph, table form beyond standard problem- answer sets. It is important for teachers to validate that part of the learning process is the struggle in knowledge making. Kids are used to having a right or wrong answer in mathematics, but dont want to show you anything in between. Encourage students to not throw away attempts and likened this to methodology taught in a science lab. Think of science notebooks you document everything, dont cross things out, dont lose it, and reflect on what went wrong. Modeling classrooms have a new dynamic in comparison to traditional math classrooms. Group work skills need to be taught and modeled. Teachers need to watch very closely in the group work activities and know how to push those who are a bump on a log in an encouraging manner. Mike Shaughnessy (Teachers Development Group -NCTM presentation) was referenced as a resource for creating classroom norms for project based classrooms. The group shared examples of collaborative group positions used in their classrooms such as facilitator, observer, presenter, and spy (someone with permission to wander and collaborate with other groups). A Sample Assessment (used by Maria) Setting the stage/introduce problem Show me the math Assessment of model/conclusion Maria also pointed out the need for students to self-assess. She uses homework cards to do this. Each student has a homework card on which he/she self-assess each assignment with a scale of 1 (didnt attempt or do well on at least 50%),2 (attempted most 80%and did well),or 3 (attempted all and did well 80+). This is included as part of a participation grade.