Hi Everyone,
To get things going I just want to start by saying this conference and this working group really made the trip worthwhile. There were a lot of thought provoking moments and I thoroughly enjoyed networking with other people of all different interests in math education. I took a lot from the conference and am anxious to share our discussions. The one thing that I brought back with me is how important it is to have necessary connections and networks that enhances learning, both professionally and personally. Hence, this blog. I was taken aback when I realized the power of having people, for example, at the university level, interacting directly with teachers. In Newfoundland, that does not happen. We have distinct 'board' people, distinct 'District' people and then there are us, the teachers. However, there are good things happening at the District level - as more initiative is being put into teacher research, support and resources. I think we are headed in a positive direction, but we are not there yet. My question now is, how are we going to begin the process of having all parties interacting with one another to enhance all groups? I feel that until this happens we will be unable to meet our potential here in this province. What are your thoughts on this?
About Me
- Elaina Johnson
- Hi Everyone, My name is Elaina Johnson. I teach a mix match of things at Catalina Elementary. Currently I am Grade 8 homeroom with teaching duties that include Grade 8 Math and ELA, Health and Technology, Grade 6 Math and Grade 7 technology. I am so fortunate to be able to teach with such great people who share my interests and philosophies. I just completed my Masters of Education in Math and am known as the Math Guru in the school...I look forward to sharing my passion for learning with everyone
Thanks Elaina:
ReplyDeleteSome folks wanted the reading list I mentioned in my intro. Understanding School Assessment: A parent and community guide to helping students learn. Jan and Stephen Chappius 0-9655101-3-1
Assessment as Learning Using classroom assessment to maximize student learning. Lorna Earl 0-7619-4626-8
Smerging Data; grading more than just number crunching by Alberta Assessment COnsortium info@aac.ab.ca
How to Grade for Learning Linking grades to standards Ken O'Connor 1-57517-816-8
Formative Assessment in the secondary classroom Shirley Clarke 978-0-340-88766-0
these are the books we studied in the order we studied them. Met every 2 weeks and often did a couple of chapters at a time not the whole book!
I had the great fortune of observing Peter Liljedahl operate as a classroom teacher on friday. He led numeracy tasks in two classrooms: a math 8 class and a grade 7 class. It is about the task he led in the Grade 7 classroom I wish to write.
ReplyDeleteHe had 5 kids bring in their mountain bikes, and cleared away a big space in the middle of the room. Aside from Peter telling stories and talking about gears, he discussed when a bike is easy to peddle and when it is dificult, depending on the gear.
Here is the task:
Put the kids in groups, hopefully 3-4 kids and one bike per group. By counting teeth on sprockets, students are to find the gear ratios of all gears (number of teeth on the front sprocket in ratio to the number of teeth on the rear sprocket). On the bikes, most had 18-21 gears ,with 3 front sprockets and 6-7 rear sprockets.
Once the students had the fractions he had them convert to decimal and rank them in order of largest to smallest. Some found that different gears had the very same gear ratios. For enrichment, he had one group try to design their "dream bike", with the gear ratios of their choice.
The next day, the teacher would have them use their data, which they recorded, to create broken line graphs.
Hi Elaina,
ReplyDelete(This is a comment concerning the blog, not the above topic. )
Thanks for setting up the blog again.
To make it easier for everyone in our group to collaborate, you can add the other members of the group as authors of the blog. These authors can then post anything on this blog page.
You can add authors to the page through the "Permissions" menu of "Settings".
Tullia