One sentence for Why?
One sentence for How?
One sentence for What? about:
- Learning
- Teaching
- Estimating
- Exploring
- Discussing
- Assessing
- Improving
Survey
Results here.
Thanks in advance!
1110
*Gold star for @fawnpnguyen for first post!
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Why? How? and What?
Inspired by Simon Sinek's TED talk (at least the first 6 minutes of it), The Teaching Gap (Stigler & Heibert), and you... I'm reevaluating some teaching ideas & restructuring some classroom details in preparation for next year. What are your thoughts, using
One sentence for Why?
One sentence for How?
One sentence for What? about:
Survey
Results here.
Thanks in advance!
1110
*Gold star for @fawnpnguyen for first post!
One sentence for Why?
One sentence for How?
One sentence for What? about:
Survey
Results here.
Thanks in advance!
1110
*Gold star for @fawnpnguyen for first post!
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Future students
Recently, I've been developing and staging 3 Act lessons for elementary students (my future students). However, who's to say the tasks can't be applied at the middle school level, or even higher. I've been looking through the Everyday Math series our elementary school uses and have found it refreshing to see what concepts students are introduced to or expected to master at each grade level. Ironically, I came across a second grade "Exploratory" lesson that Dan Meyer recently nailed with Popcorn Picker. Second grade if you missed that.
It was fun to share the textbook scans with Dan. Christopher Danielson jumped in with some thoughts about elementary curriculum. He works with future teachers and is a very insightful fellow! Check out his Tootsie Roll and the Ootsie.
As a middle school math teacher, this elementary stuff is all new to me, but I'm open to the challenge. Especially since I'll be helping coach a handful of teachers next year with 3 Act lessons. I'm using the summer to investigate some ideas and build up a small catalog of lessons. My working goals are to:
Lastly, it's great to know there are teachers helping students with life skills and not workbook skills. Sadie Estrella shares an experience she had this year by embracing those teaching moments we frequently have with our students. Should we eliminate 're-teach' from our vocabulary and change it to re-explore? Your thoughts on all this?
Future,
255
It was fun to share the textbook scans with Dan. Christopher Danielson jumped in with some thoughts about elementary curriculum. He works with future teachers and is a very insightful fellow! Check out his Tootsie Roll and the Ootsie.
As a middle school math teacher, this elementary stuff is all new to me, but I'm open to the challenge. Especially since I'll be helping coach a handful of teachers next year with 3 Act lessons. I'm using the summer to investigate some ideas and build up a small catalog of lessons. My working goals are to:
- Work on turning the abstract to concrete.
- Look for overlapping concepts throughout K-8 grades.
- Further investigate the importance & relevance of estimation.
Lastly, it's great to know there are teachers helping students with life skills and not workbook skills. Sadie Estrella shares an experience she had this year by embracing those teaching moments we frequently have with our students. Should we eliminate 're-teach' from our vocabulary and change it to re-explore? Your thoughts on all this?
Future,
255
Monday, June 25, 2012
Estimation is Key
First Day of summer school.
This morning, I snapped a picture of a portion of our school parking lot. My intention: use it as the daily estimation question included in the warm-up.
Q: How many total parking spaces are in the parking lot?
We did our warm-up. I first asked for numbers that were too low and didn't make sense. Then too high. Finally, I asked for their estimates, but didn't validate any responses. We then jumped into our lesson for the day: ESTIMATION.
Opening the lesson, I asked my students to think of one good thing and one bad thing about estimation. Here's what they listed.
Good:
Why?
It gives anyone a chance to cast an answer based upon specific information. It's a starting point. It keeps your number sense in check. It allows the brain to think abstractly for a brief moment. It's free!
We went outside and delegated the work. Students counted staff, reserved, preschool, handicap, and ordinary (unlabeled) spots. We got a total of 141 parking spaces. One kid was two away with 143 as his estimate. Go figure. Another kid was in the five hundreds. Go figure. After the empirical data produces the answer, we always circle back to our original estimates. It's important for students to see the difference so they can improve their number sense and estimation skills for next time.
Tomorrow, we extend the lesson: convert those itemized numbers into percentages in order to make a pie chart of the allocation of parking spaces.
Check it: Steve Leinwand Case 4: Number Sense
He hits some great points at 2:25. It's worth watching the whole thing in my opinion.
Steve exclaims about estimation, "We need to build that into ALL the things that we do!"
Think how many times a day we estimate:
Time to get ready in the morning. Time to get to work. How long is this darn red light? How long before I get my cup of coffee? How many? How many? How many?
Please share with me!
What can I do to make estimation better with my students?
How do you use estimation effectively?
How do your students benefit from it? (or not)
What are some other daily estimations you make?
Estimate,
1128
This morning, I snapped a picture of a portion of our school parking lot. My intention: use it as the daily estimation question included in the warm-up.
Q: How many total parking spaces are in the parking lot?
We did our warm-up. I first asked for numbers that were too low and didn't make sense. Then too high. Finally, I asked for their estimates, but didn't validate any responses. We then jumped into our lesson for the day: ESTIMATION.
Opening the lesson, I asked my students to think of one good thing and one bad thing about estimation. Here's what they listed.
Good:
- Doesn't have to be correct
- It's easy
- Can be made mentally
- It's an educated guess
- "It's free! It doesn't cost you anything." (Oh, I added that one)
- Not precise
- Could be wrong
Why?
It gives anyone a chance to cast an answer based upon specific information. It's a starting point. It keeps your number sense in check. It allows the brain to think abstractly for a brief moment. It's free!
We went outside and delegated the work. Students counted staff, reserved, preschool, handicap, and ordinary (unlabeled) spots. We got a total of 141 parking spaces. One kid was two away with 143 as his estimate. Go figure. Another kid was in the five hundreds. Go figure. After the empirical data produces the answer, we always circle back to our original estimates. It's important for students to see the difference so they can improve their number sense and estimation skills for next time.
Tomorrow, we extend the lesson: convert those itemized numbers into percentages in order to make a pie chart of the allocation of parking spaces.
Check it: Steve Leinwand Case 4: Number Sense
He hits some great points at 2:25. It's worth watching the whole thing in my opinion.
Steve exclaims about estimation, "We need to build that into ALL the things that we do!"
Think how many times a day we estimate:
Time to get ready in the morning. Time to get to work. How long is this darn red light? How long before I get my cup of coffee? How many? How many? How many?
Please share with me!
What can I do to make estimation better with my students?
How do you use estimation effectively?
How do your students benefit from it? (or not)
What are some other daily estimations you make?
Estimate,
1128
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