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Assessment

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Welcome back to my final math blog for year 2!  I can't believe that we have come to an end in our math journey together.  Time certainly does fly! For my final blog, we will be focusing on assessment.   What is the right way to assess our students?  Well, this week's class gave us many examples of what not to do.   I guess we can thank Mr. D for that! Retrieved from http://slideplayer.com One tip that stuck with me was about focusing on the comments and not the grade.   The first thing that students look at when you give them a test back is the letter or number grade at the top of the page.  Everyone does this, me included.  The problem is , that is all the students will care about.  Comments are so much more important because the student will be able to identify their strengths and their next steps.  That is what the purpose of assessment is! To improve student learning.  Comments can help to improve student learning while grades won't have the same effect. A

Blending Teaching

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Hello again and welcome back to my math blog! This week in math class we dove into blended teaching.  But what exactly is blended teaching?  this is how it is described in the short video, "blended learning units for JI math"; Blended learning engages students in math.  As 21st century teachers, it is imperative to implement technology in the classroom.  Students use mobile apps on a daily basis and it makes sense for them to use it academically as well.  As is stated in the monograph, 'Making Math Children will Love', from this weeks readings, "if kids are not having fun, they’re not going to commit themselves. They’re not going to practice or learn. Fun generates achievement and focus.”  In order for students to be more engaged, interested and attentive in math, technology is key in promoting this.  I had the opportunity to use a few mobile apps during my last practicum.  I mainly used apps for review and as formative assessment.  The students were focuse

Developing Concepts through Rich Tasks

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This week's math lesson was about developing rich tasks.   Our learning goal was to be able to identify the criteria for a rich task and to explore a variety of these tasks at different grade levels.    I learned that rich mathematical tasks are essential for engaging learners and creating dynamic classrooms.  Unfortunately, too few textbooks contain such tasks, so teachers must find or develop them on their own.  Inevitably, the question arises, "How do we know a good rich task from a bad one?"  The following are five (there are more, but I chose a few of the most valuable characteristics that I will implement as a teacher), important characteristics that will help answer this question; Retrieved from class slide show [Personal Image] 1) Accessibility to all Learners :  The students we teach are all unique and learn in different ways.  They come with a wide range of mathematical knowledge, mathematics background and mathematical experience.  If a task is truly r

Teaching Mathematics for All Learners

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Differentiating Mathematics Instruction In this week's math class we were introduced to a few differentiation teaching strategies that can and should be implemented in the classroom.   But firstly, why differentiation?  Well, according to this weeks monograph, 'The Capacity Building Series', “differentiation is an organized yet flexible way of proactively adjusting teaching and learning to meet kids where they are and help them to achieve maximum growth as learners.” (Tomlinson, 1999)  The old school way of teaching math was one style fits all, but this rote style format, preached practice and had students listening to lectures.  Where was the understanding of math at a deeper, more conceptual level?  Each student is unique and learns differently.  In order for teachers to meet this need, they need to take their students' prior knowledge, their zone of proximal development, and data using assessment for learning strategies into account when designing tasks.   Re

Understanding, Knowing and Doing in Mathematics

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Hi Everyone! This week's math class started out with a game of math jeopardy.  Beginning a class with an online game is a great way to get students engaged and a great assessment tool for the teacher to use.  I had experience using Kahoot with my grade 6 class in last year's placement.  I used it many times as an assessment for learning, or formative assessment, when reviewing a science unit.  I used it in the beginning of a unit just to get an idea about what the students already knew as well as at the end of a unit as review.   It allowed me to see which students were understanding the topics and which students needed a bit more help.  In this way, I could diversify my lesson for the next day. Retrieved from http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/021/547/kahoot.gif Understanding or Knowing/Doing Math? A great question came up in math class this week;  Is it more important to understand or know math?  In other words, is understanding math more important

and the journey continues......

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September 10, 2017 Welcome back everyone! So here we are in year 2 of JI math.... last year was an interesting year with regards to math and it helped me understand that one of the best ways to teach the subject is to make it fun through playing math games.  In this way, students will become more engaged and won't even realize that they are learning! Our first math class this year continued with the theme of a growth mindset.  We were introduced to a game called "Game about Squares, found here ,  gameaboutsquares.com   : Retrieved from   www.informationvine.com/All+About+Squares This game is a fun and interactive online game.  It is played by moving the coloured blocks to their belonging dots.  It's not as easy as it sounds, however.  The player needs to use their problem solving and critical thinking skills to pass each level.  This is a great game to use in the classroom.  The teacher can see how each student attempts to solve problems.  It is a great way to