This week in
mathematics was filled with rich tasks and how to provide differentiated
instruction and strategies in a mathematics classroom via online webinar.
Through each week we are learning as educators how to make mathematics a
meaning subject and how we instill the belief that all students can be successful
in mathematics if we continue to lead with a growth mindset.
Each and everyone of us and our future students learn differently and we are reminded about then when we start classes with different Minds on activities. This week’s game ‘Which one Doesn’t Belong?’ provides open discussion on a problem and provides students the opportunity for reasoning which in turn helps them to understand better. I reflect back to the table conversation we had in class and between the 6 of us 5 of us had different answers and our reason why we think it doesn’t belong. It was great provides students autonomy and a conversation starter.
The articles from
this week’s readings helped us understand background into what mathematical
rich tasks are, their importance and how we can get started as educators on creating
rich problem solving tasks. I believe it is extremely important to start the
school year with knowing your students and getting to know them more and more
as the year goes on it will certainly help to target a variety of learners.
“Rich tasks
have a range of characteristics that together offer different opportunities to
meet the different needs of learners at different times.”
The key take
away points that stand out as my ‘ah ha’ moments are:
- · Accessibility to ALL learners: We must learn what and how the best way to teach our students are and unsure we are providing them with the opportunities to make mistakes and learn from our mistakes, to be more confident in mathematics and all subject areas.
- · Real-life Tasks: Make Math MEANINGFUL! Give the students a reason to want to learn and make it applicable to their lives. When we connect what we are learning and different problem solving questions to experiences in their lives we providing students rich tasks that connects them to the problem, provide reasoning and talk math to one another.
- · Multiple Approaches & Representations: In other words Differentiated learning, provide autonomy for students and let them learn the task the way they know best.
- · Collaboration and Discussion: have students work with each, it allows them to connect and understand a concept and strengthens their chances at being successful in mathematics.
- · Engagement, Curiosity & Creativity: Not all students love math, I for one was not one who did. But when I decided to take on more of an open mindset and learn math in a more meaningful way I was able to enjoy it more. When students can become creative in their learning it strengthens their curiosity levels to learn.
- · Opportunities for Extension:Students learn at different paces and bring forth different knowledge and understandings of different topics. It is important for us as teachers to provide the opportunity to further develop a problem or task to accommodate for all our students.
As future
educators it is important for us to learn different strategies to help teach
our diverse students who learn in different ways, at different speeds and with different
instruction. This week’s webinar was led by Lizzy and myself on differentiated instruction
and strategies that can be implemented in the classroom. I felt that in thirty
minutes we really couldn’t even touch half of the ways we as teachers can differentiate
learning for our students, however we provided our colleagues with some ‘go to strategies’
that our professors have shared with us in our time in Teacher’s College. The
most important thing about DI is to know your students and understand their
strengths and weakness and how we can challenge them to become better students.
I really enjoyed the group of ladies we shared our webinar with, we had great conversation
and shared how we saw DI in our placements and how we can really implement them
into our classrooms.
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| Alex Buckner. October (2017). UDL/Differentiated Instruction |
Hey Trish, I really liked how you mentioned your table groups outcomes when we were playing the "Which One Doesn't Belong?" game, because it shows you how different everyones thinking process really is! Our classrooms are the same thing, they are filled with so many different minds that we have to implement DI so that we reach all learners present. It is true that we are now going further as educators and growing to get to a place where mistakes are celebrated and not frowned upon, and to accept multiple ways of solving a problem (not just expecting everyone to do the same thing for the ONE right answer all the time). I also liked how you mentioned DI in the the classrooms not only suits the various learners but it also challenges them to become better students. Great post!
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