I signed up for an on-line course from a Stanford professor about learning math. I wasn't sure I would get through the entire course and sure enough I didn't. The first video though was very interesting as she interviewed Stanford students about their thoughts, feelings, and memories about math. I must say it was really discouraging. Her main point was that math was a subject that alienated kids for a host of reasons. Some felt they were the wrong gender, some thought they weren't smart enough, some felt that they could never measure up. These were Stanford! kids. Imagine how a "regular" kids have felt across the years. There was a lot of discussion about how their teachers really didn't understand math and there seemed to be only one way to do a problem.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Lure of Labyrinth
In years past we have attempted to implement an online problem-solving program with our fifth-graders. It is out of Maryland. I have always felt a bit sheepish asking kids to use it as I had never investigated it myself. I didn't know how it worked, what the goals of the program were, or what essential learnings or standards it addressed. So I spent some time investigating the program further. I was able to set up a teacher account which allows me to view what my students are doing on the program. I can see where they have been successful and what problems they have attempted. In addition I was able to view all of the teacher videos that taught me how to use the puzzles and resources with my class, and how to support my students, and how it tied to learning outcomes. I learned that the game is aimed at 6-8 graders and that many of the outcomes are above and beyond where I might expect even my gifted math students to go.
I also learned how to navigate through the program and that it has a feature that allows me to set up teams of students. They can communicate and work together to solve the puzzles. The beauty though, is that the numbers in each puzzle change each time it is loaded so a child can continually attempt a problem and when they solve it, they can only talk about how to solve it and not an actual answer.
The premise of the game is very engaging - the kids are rescuing pets and have a monster avatar.
I decided I would introduce it to my classes although I don't expect all kids to enjoy it or be successful. I look at it as an opportunity for kids who are ready for challenges to have an engaging challenge.
I also learned how to navigate through the program and that it has a feature that allows me to set up teams of students. They can communicate and work together to solve the puzzles. The beauty though, is that the numbers in each puzzle change each time it is loaded so a child can continually attempt a problem and when they solve it, they can only talk about how to solve it and not an actual answer.
The premise of the game is very engaging - the kids are rescuing pets and have a monster avatar.
I decided I would introduce it to my classes although I don't expect all kids to enjoy it or be successful. I look at it as an opportunity for kids who are ready for challenges to have an engaging challenge.
Roll Out
We implemented our roll out for our fifth graders. Although many things went well, lots of things didn't.
First we found that all Google passwords should have been reset before we allowed anyone to login. Many, many children forgot their passwords from fourth grade and far too much time was spent individually resetting passwords and thus much of the content we wanted to teach them wasn't taught.
Second, we found that we aren't using the shared folder's for sharing of work. We have found it much more helpful to have the kids name documents with a specific naming convention so that we can search for documents by name and then save them in a specific folder of our choosing. So we won't have them set up their folder that way next year.
Third, we are finding it very difficult to keep fifth graders from messing with their desktops. We have had complaints from our librarian, and study hall teachers that kids are messing with their desktops.
We are finding that although the idea of a single computer assigned to a single kid might be attractive to some, it is not working well in the fifth grade. The amount of time spend casing, uncasing, retrieving, and putting back is far out weighing any benefit of the having just one child on a computer. We are losing a lot of instructional time. I would again advocate for a cart per homeroom to be used by 2 students. We had few problems when 5 kids shared one computer, I think two kids would be fine and the streamlined use and fewer transitions and storage issues would far outweigh any perceived problems.
First we found that all Google passwords should have been reset before we allowed anyone to login. Many, many children forgot their passwords from fourth grade and far too much time was spent individually resetting passwords and thus much of the content we wanted to teach them wasn't taught.
Second, we found that we aren't using the shared folder's for sharing of work. We have found it much more helpful to have the kids name documents with a specific naming convention so that we can search for documents by name and then save them in a specific folder of our choosing. So we won't have them set up their folder that way next year.
Third, we are finding it very difficult to keep fifth graders from messing with their desktops. We have had complaints from our librarian, and study hall teachers that kids are messing with their desktops.
We are finding that although the idea of a single computer assigned to a single kid might be attractive to some, it is not working well in the fifth grade. The amount of time spend casing, uncasing, retrieving, and putting back is far out weighing any benefit of the having just one child on a computer. We are losing a lot of instructional time. I would again advocate for a cart per homeroom to be used by 2 students. We had few problems when 5 kids shared one computer, I think two kids would be fine and the streamlined use and fewer transitions and storage issues would far outweigh any perceived problems.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Curation
So far I've "played" with diigo, twitter search, feedly, and pinterest. I also have a twitter account where I follow some math geeks that I've discovered through conferences, but don't do a good job of keeping up with the tweets.
I see myself using the pinterest account as a place to store ideas both for my classroom and my personal stuff. I could get lost in the home ideas out there. Way too much for me to do! I find it a bit frustrating that a lot of the teacher stuff out there seemed to be looking for payment.
I think my team has determined a way for us to organize all of our bookmarks using diigo. We've created two separate groups - 5th grade teacher & 5th grade student. We are using the teacher group for professional sites, and the student group for actual sites for kids. We are being diligent about tagging with really helpful tags so we can efficiently search. Our plan is to then transfer these links to our 5th grade teacher pages as we need them for each unit. Hopefully this will keep the page a bit more manageable than it has been in the past.
I think I have enough curation tools at my disposal. Now what I need is time to actual curate! I suppose it takes time to learn who has good stuff and who has crud. Now that I have a better understanding of how to organize it, maybe I can spend some time this summer curating, organizing, and evaluating.
I see myself using the pinterest account as a place to store ideas both for my classroom and my personal stuff. I could get lost in the home ideas out there. Way too much for me to do! I find it a bit frustrating that a lot of the teacher stuff out there seemed to be looking for payment.
I think my team has determined a way for us to organize all of our bookmarks using diigo. We've created two separate groups - 5th grade teacher & 5th grade student. We are using the teacher group for professional sites, and the student group for actual sites for kids. We are being diligent about tagging with really helpful tags so we can efficiently search. Our plan is to then transfer these links to our 5th grade teacher pages as we need them for each unit. Hopefully this will keep the page a bit more manageable than it has been in the past.
I think I have enough curation tools at my disposal. Now what I need is time to actual curate! I suppose it takes time to learn who has good stuff and who has crud. Now that I have a better understanding of how to organize it, maybe I can spend some time this summer curating, organizing, and evaluating.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
The Plan
My group, Marti-jo, Rich, Kelly, Liz, and I, began discussing organization of our technology links. We have jury-rigged a system that has worked fairly well for us in the past, but was lacking a good way for us to organize and sort through them for ourselves. We decided to list all of our sites under two DIIGO groups - HMS 5th Teacher and HMS 5th Student. The professional links we share under teacher and kid links under student. We plan to label everything with helpful labels so we can search efficiently.
In addition, we plan to organize all of our shared google docs. None of us can find ANYTHING! EVER! So we plan to create shared folders by subject and sort our documents into these folders. In addition we are going to do some investigation into work flow with our fifth graders. We will consider setting up shared folders, naming conventions, doctopus, etc.
Another aspect of our project will be determining what lessons we want for Boot Camp for the fifth graders. We will determine who will teach what and how. This can't really be done until we figure out the work flow. So far we know: email, googledocs folders, desk-top
In addition, we plan to organize all of our shared google docs. None of us can find ANYTHING! EVER! So we plan to create shared folders by subject and sort our documents into these folders. In addition we are going to do some investigation into work flow with our fifth graders. We will consider setting up shared folders, naming conventions, doctopus, etc.
Another aspect of our project will be determining what lessons we want for Boot Camp for the fifth graders. We will determine who will teach what and how. This can't really be done until we figure out the work flow. So far we know: email, googledocs folders, desk-top
EdCafe - Takeaway
Ramsey-Musallam
- curiosity drives instruction - why? why? why? Want kids to question everything.
* students questions...
* need to start with inquiry, experiments, cognitive dissonance, then allow technology to come in with student questions.
* curiosity drives knowledge, didn't fear trial and error, reflection allowed to design and refine
* curiosity comes first, embrace the mess, practice reflection
How to bring the curiosity into science class? What demonstrations can we come up with that reinvigorate the "why" approach? How do we use magnets which kids have had experience with practically their whole lives, to have them start questioning how and why they work? How do you explain chemical process of battery, electron flow etc? What are the big ideas that we want kids to walk away with? How do we bring such a complex topic to fifth graders understanding of the world?
In math - it all goes back to " the hook"
Duckworth - develop growth mindset in kids- grit is most important trait in success
What motivates people? The most important characteristic for success is grit - passion and stick to itiveness - living life like it's a marathon
how do you build grit? no one knows
how do you build motivation - no one knows
grit is unrelated to talent - usually more grit means less talent
growth mindset - belief that the ability to learn is not fixed - it can change with your effort - have kids learn about how brains grow when you are challenged and fail
How do we help kids develop a growth mindset? I see this especially in math when the kids finally encounter something they don't know how to do. They don't have the "try something else" or "What does this remind me of" strategies to draw upon.
EdCafe - topic of the week driven by student questions - assign to kids to lead a cafe
Smart is something you are - it's something you become
Our group talked a lot about developing grit in kids. Grit requires repeated failure and it's messy, but our culture is so grade/standardized testing focused that we're puzzled as to where to find time and "permission" to develop grit. How do you allow failure and still grade?
I see this too - how do you grade the process of learning and not just the learning? Our life role outcomes are more a measure of this 'grit'. Also the new CCSS process standards for math really reflect this grit - moving into and out of context,
tweetdeck
Monday, June 17, 2013
4 Key Ideas
1. Rita Pierson - this talk reminded me of Bruce's favorite saying, "Kids don't care what you know until they know you care." This is why teachers spend so much time building community at the beginning of the year and why, even when a kid drives you crazy, you develop a positive relationship with them.
2. Think for Yourself - this video reminded me of the movie "Race to Nowhere." The teen talks about kids worrying about test scores and grades, but not the learning. We have lost sight of the joy of learning and learning for learning's sake. I think the political belief that we are creating workers as opposed to an informed citizenry plays a part in this.
This does worry me and my husband and we have worked hard to keep our own kids out of "the race." We want them to lead balanced lives. In my classroom, with standardized testing taking such a prominent role, I sometimes find it hard to remember that my main job is to teach kids to love learning and to help them figure out how to learn. I am hopeful that as Smarter Balance and the CCSS come in that I will be able to focus less on the testing aspect and more on the learning aspect. I hope we will ditch the NWEA and use the whole range available within Smarter Balance for our kids who need RTI help. Let's stop overtesting kids who we know are not in danger. In math, as the CCSS come in, I will be able to have a strong focus on the practices - the process of learning math and hopefully rekindle kids curiosity. I am not sure how "learning with technology" will happen with my math class. Something to definitely think about.
3. User Generated Learning - this talked about the needs of adult learners and how the curation, reflection, and contribution cycle is a valid way for adults to learn.
4. User Generated Learning - professional development should be end-user driven.
1. Rita Pierson - this talk reminded me of Bruce's favorite saying, "Kids don't care what you know until they know you care." This is why teachers spend so much time building community at the beginning of the year and why, even when a kid drives you crazy, you develop a positive relationship with them.
2. Think for Yourself - this video reminded me of the movie "Race to Nowhere." The teen talks about kids worrying about test scores and grades, but not the learning. We have lost sight of the joy of learning and learning for learning's sake. I think the political belief that we are creating workers as opposed to an informed citizenry plays a part in this.
This does worry me and my husband and we have worked hard to keep our own kids out of "the race." We want them to lead balanced lives. In my classroom, with standardized testing taking such a prominent role, I sometimes find it hard to remember that my main job is to teach kids to love learning and to help them figure out how to learn. I am hopeful that as Smarter Balance and the CCSS come in that I will be able to focus less on the testing aspect and more on the learning aspect. I hope we will ditch the NWEA and use the whole range available within Smarter Balance for our kids who need RTI help. Let's stop overtesting kids who we know are not in danger. In math, as the CCSS come in, I will be able to have a strong focus on the practices - the process of learning math and hopefully rekindle kids curiosity. I am not sure how "learning with technology" will happen with my math class. Something to definitely think about.
3. User Generated Learning - this talked about the needs of adult learners and how the curation, reflection, and contribution cycle is a valid way for adults to learn.
4. User Generated Learning - professional development should be end-user driven.
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