This week
in math class definitely had the 'juices flowing' for many aspects
starting from the opening activity to the webinar conference had with my group.
The Minds on game played in class, ‘I have…Who has’ related well with one of
the videos from math mindset talking about speed and mathematics. I found
myself struggling to participate in the game because it required us to think
very fast to solve the problem our peer was asking to see if we had the number
required to solve the question. When I am able to take my time to solve a
question I am able to deeply think about the question being asked and
understand it better. When we slowed down and repeated the question I was able
to visualize/write down the question and work to solve it. All students are
different and learn differently and this was a key learning tip to take away,
that we all learn at different a pace and need more time than others to
understand. Allowing students to think deeply and critically not only for math
problems but in other subject areas will help benefit them as learners.
We
further explored and thought critically with the number of parallel tasks
covered in class. Parallel tasks certainly provide autonomy for students and is
an example of differentiated learning that educators can implement in the
classroom. Parallel tasks focus on a specific key concept but is delivered
differently for variety of levels of ‘mathematical sophistication.’ This
specific strategy also brings forth discussion with peers or even classroom
discuss to see how students came up with the answers they did for each, then
leads to the variety of different answers that can be found which then further
asks more enrich questions, this process is known as scaffolding. At first when
we were asked to pick between questions to answer I looked at them and picked
the one that I understood best and worked on that, ensuring that the questions
being asked are both balanced with difficulty just worded differently or
providing different information to solve the question is important. Parallel
tasks in a classroom can further enhance a classroom by;
- Providing open ended questions and problems that
will provide more rich and deeper exploration of problem solving
- Vary the different questions depending on
students need
- Model and provide manipulatives and other tools
to solve the task at hand
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| Patricia Mermigas. September 2017. Guiding Questions |
Creating
questions for different parallel tasks also had us gather a deeper understand
for open ended questions and allowed us to think in the view of the students
and what they are curious about to help them solve the question.
The first
webinars explored the topic of Inquiry Based Learning and what it looks like in
the classroom and how we as educators can apply it within our own classes.
Overall it went great we had a great interactive group discussion. The
presenters incorporated Math Daily 3 Framework with IBL and how we can create
questions that are open ended and provide the opportunity for students to
further build on the main topic. Discussing with the group how IBL makes us
feel is a great self-reflection tool that will help us when developing our
future lesson plans. They also included a great handout that has been added to
my personal resource toolbox.
My take
away poster to be posted in my future classroom is the ‘6 Golden Rules of
Student Engagement,’ I think it captures what exploration and a student-centered
classroom is all about and will always provide everyone with that constant
remind that student engagement involves 6 important things that make the
classroom and safe, positive and engaging place to learn.
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| Nicolas Pino James. September 2017. 6 Golden Rules for Engaging Students |
