Category: Technology

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ASCD 2012 – Sunday

2nd day of the ASCD Conference in Philly.  Today I focused mostly on best practices sessions in math.

Enhancing Concept Development and Vocabulary Proficiency in Math Classrooms, facilitated by Dr. Donna Knoell

Across the board, a focus on vocabulary increases  student proficiency rates, yet we focus little on vocab in math classrooms.  Students need to have 8 to 10 meaningful exposures to vocab before students can apply in context.  For ESL learners, the number is 12 to 15.  We want students to be able to communicate their reasoning.

For example, in elementary school, students are often taught to fold paper “hot dog style and “hamburger style”.  But this short-cut has eliminated an opportunity to discuss and reinforce horizontal and vertical as necessary vocabulary.  The human mind innately seeks meaning.  We are often in such a hurry to move on, that we often forget to provide time to think about what our students have learned.  Talking math helps us cement our understanding of math ideas.  Challenge our students to defend ideas by utilizing math vocab appropriately.

Students can personalize their experience with math vocab words by maintaining a journal of new words, with definitions, picture and contextual sentences.  This caused me to reflect upon conversations I have with teachers at my high school, where teachers become frustrated by problems involving angles of elevation or depression, bearing, or the similar terms root, intercept and zero. As we expect our students to become more adept with communication, justification, and application, helping students develop an appropriate vocabulary toolbox becomes of greater importance.

Beyond the Textbook: Math Activities to Stretch Your Students Thinking, facilitated by Dan Rosenberg

A variety of games for grades 1-8, gathered via the “CASE method (copy and steal everything)”:

Battleship: students write an algebra equation in each position to represent “hits”.  To earn the cell, students must solve the problem correctly.

Dots: play the connect the dots and square capture game, but place integer values in the cells, which become point values as squares are captured.

One game I have used in class at the start of probability units is the “card prediction game”. Start by dealing out 10 cards face up.  Students can then predict what the next card (suit and rank) will be.  Points are earned by correctly predicting characteristics of the next card:

  • If the card they predict is the same color as the next card drawn, they earn 1 point
  • If the card they predict is the same suit as the next card drawn, they earn 3 points
  • It the card they predict is the same rank (i.e. king) as the next card, they earn 5 points
  • If the card they predict is the exact card drawn, they earn 10 points.

Play the game for 10 rounds and total your score.  It’s a nice game for discussing the vocabulary of suits, face cards, and values, along with the conditional probability of events, given past information.

Dan also presented some nice hooks for class, such as one involving a “proof” that the angles in a triangle sum to 180 degrees.  Have all students cut a large triangle from a piece of paper.  Mark each of the 3 angles. Then cut the large triangle into 3 small triangles.  The 3 marked angles can then be arranged to share a vertex, adjacent to one another, and will form a linear trio.

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The math games presented me remind me to do a blog post about the long-running BBC tv gameshow “Countdown”, where a numbers game is played.  Google the show on your own, or wait for my post about it next month.

Google vendor presentation

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Today I also participated in a presentation by reps from Google, where a number of tools were presented, which work with their Google docs.  Flubaroo is an extension which teachers can use to quickly grade responses students submit via a Google doc.  The extension will grade the assignment, then e-mail students with a detailed report of their progress.

Mail map merge will allow you to create a distribution list, and include a map to an invited location.  Pretty snazzy!

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Technology

ASCD 2012 – Saturday

Today was the first day of the ASCD conference in my hometown of Philadelphia, and I had the opportunity to attend a number of interesting sessions…

It’s Not About the Bling – Technology Through an Instructional Lens

This presentation was by the Multimedia User Group from San Juan, California, where they have embraced  technology as enhancing and transforming instruction:

technology allows for the creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable.

The group discussed the need to move to a re-difinition level, where high tech and high pedagogy are married.  Many districts, like mine, probably hover at the augmentation level, where high tech are matched with low to middle pedagogy practice.

The “It’s Not About the Bling” acronym provides a framework for student-centered technology integration.  Goals are focused on the student:

Interactions – Non-linguistic represntations – Assessments – Thinking Skills – Build

Teachers in the MMUG meet for 3 Saturdays each year for a day of sharing, collaboration and development.  The message is that it’s not about pretty background and slide transitions, but effective message delivery.

General session – Reed Timmer.  Discovery Education.  Stormchaser

Thanks to Discovery Education for sponsoring Reed’s inspirational speech, which included exciting videos of his adventures.  I was amazed by Reed’s story, and his transformation of chase videos from and old Buick to the chase mobiles he uses today.

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I was most interested in the unique data collection methods, which take place in relative chaos…parachutes launched from potato guns attached to hulls of vehicles.  Parachutes open and follow spirals of tornadoes, which collect data on speed and temperature every 5 seconds.  Later, my boss and curriculum director noted “It’s like the guys from Jackass melded with science”.  He’s probably not all that far off…..

Thanks to Janeeta for her gracious invitation to the Discovery Ed dinner, and best wishes to Pat, as he moves on from the teaching ranks to his exciting new job with Discovery!

Differentiated Math Strategies for Addressing the Common Core

This session included a few interesting nuggets for challenging student thought and discussion: Example for defending reasoning: Does .9 repeating equal 1? Discuss and defend.

One colleague noted…We agree that 1/3 = .3 repeating, and that 2/3 = .6 repeating…therefore .9 = 3/3 or 1

There was a intriguing response from the group which I appreciated: “if two numbers are not equal, there must be some other number between them.  What number lies between .9 repeating and 1?”

Finally, thanks to the ASCD crew for the great fun at the tweet-up this evening!  Look me up at @bobloch

Looking forward to tomorrow!

Categories
Algebra Technology

TI Publish View – Bringing Interactive Lessons Home

In the past few years, Texas Instruments has been aggressive in developing and marketing its Nspire product line.  I recall the first time I shared the (now) old blue click pad product, and the oohs and aahs from my students when I showed them how you could trick out the keyboard with an 84 keypad.  This was soon followed by the touchpad, and now we have the CX, with its thin design and color screen.

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Along with the improved hardware, TI has also improved its software options, providing an opportunity for teachers to create their own lessons and demonstrations on the software.  Files can be easily traded and shared with students, or used on a whiteboard as a classroom manipulative.  Last month, I had the opportunity to attend a free morning of professional development on the TI Publish View feature.  This feature of the Nspire software allows teachers to embed some of the interactive features of Nspire CX files into documents.  The TI-Nspire document player then allows students to open these files and navigate the lesson.

In the short example I created below, the coefficients of a polynomial can be adjust using “elevator buttons”, which are sliders used to change the values.  Students can then observe the value of the discriminant and look for patterns in the values.  Click the link to join in the discriminant insanity!

http://education.ti.com/go/nspireplayer?nspirefile=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/68005919/Discriminant.tnsp

Additional files to try can be found at the TI Activity Exchange.  What an interesting way to have students explore on their own.  Thanks to Mike Darden from TI for the great session, and Doyt Jones for his continued hard work in bringing these sessions to the Philly area.