Darth Vader Teaches

While Kennedy Road has it's own Darth Vader teacher...Mr. Chauncey. This video is not him.



However, I thought this was a fun how-to video on teaching the Pythagorean Theorem. Anytime you can take a concept and put it in a realm that students are not expecting, they seem to become enliven again with the concepts.

Victory...Yes!

In the last post, I said that I had contemplated sending the article Do Internet Filters Undermine the Teaching of 21st Century Citizenship? to the Superintendent. Well...I did it.

What resulted was a series of forwarded emails to other people in the technology department, followed by a lot of non-responsive emails for meeting dates, a blurb in our county's Communicator about the importance of webfiltering, a one-on-one with the super, a sit down with an assistant super and tech rep, and, ultimately, me getting what I wanted.

That shouldn't sound as boastful as I think it does, but I'm just glad that I can update or install software on teacher computers and can unblock educational material that teachers are struggling to access because of the filters. In situations like these, I think of a saying that I hear a lot around here: I have to do what's best for the students.

I think teaching with 21st century technology is part of that.

Web-filtering....Arrrrgh!

The system in which I work now is rife with over-zealous web filters that will sometimes go as far as to block the Department of Education's website. Teachers are frustrated. I'm frustrated. Students are frustrated...to a degree. They seem to be the only ones who know how to get around it. The county will often unblock sites, but embedded videos, pictures, etc., are still blocked. Put in another work order, and the same results come out. It's a vicious cycle.

I'm contemplating sending this article, Do Internet Filters Undermine the Teaching of 21st Century Citizenship?, to the Super. I think every teacher has been in this situation before.

Someone posted this, which I thought was a great connection: "I'll leave you with Tom Hoffman’s analogy where he writes about web filtering, “We’ve got a situation akin to letting the clerks in the purchasing department decide whether or not the books ordered by teachers and librarians are acceptable"

Math Needs a Make Over

Only seldom do I find a video that so succinctly resonates with my ideas about teaching that I want to share it with everyone I know (inside and outside of the educational field). This is one of those videos. Since watching Dan's video, I've visited his blog a few times and am enthralled by the manner and use of technology in which he engages his students. I wish all educators could be filled with that talent and desire to build a classroom of learners.

Edmodo

During summer school this year, students accessed our Edmodo page to post assignments. Part of the fun (for them) was that Edmodo incorporates a social networking function where students can chat. All comments, though, were visible to everyone, including and especially, the teacher.

This forum for student-teacher interaction gave students lots of practice with communicating in a math language. As students work through math problems, they often skim the surface of learning, completing each task at a superficial level, but through extended exercises of writing and thinking about the processes necessary for solving problems (metacognition), they often begin to realize the deeper aspects of the task and how to apply them (Brutlag & Maples, 1992).

Above is a snapshot of one of the responses to a question, one from the student's early experience with math writing. One drawback--on the assignment page, students could not respond to any comments that I made about their work. However, the social networking side of it allows for you to have an ongoing discourse about math.

Check it out at www.edmodo.com

Brutlag, D., & Maples, C. (1992). Making connections: Beyond the surface. Mathematics Teacher, 85(3), 230-235.

Mathemagician

Something fun for the kids today.

I think I saw this guy once when I was in school. I'm always impressed by this kind of mental math.

Towards the end, for his finale, he does the mental math out loud so that you can hear his thinking. He demonstrates metacognition, if you will. Verbalizing the thinking process, which is quite intense. This is the direct connection to writing in math-hearing how one thinks.

Writing Steps

Urquhart, V. (2009, April). Using writing to improve math learning. Middle Ground, 12(4), 17- 18.

In her article, Urquhart explains the steps that one teacher took to use writing to improve students' math learning.

1. Identify the current mathematics content and the learning goal (e.g., activate metacognitive process).

2. Develop or select a question or prompt that will help students access prior content knowledge and focus their learning.

3. Introduce the writing prompt to students through a variety of methods.

4. Model for students examples of responses of varying quality and discuss each.

5. Allow a few minutes for students to respond individually to the prompt.

6. Collect and quickly scan responses to get insight about students' readiness to learn.

7. Adjust your lesson accordingly. (If many of the students are not ready to try something new, you might need to review earlier content, or you might want students to work in pairs of triads to collaboratively solve a new problem) (p. 18).