Chapter 1 – Option 3 (Action)

01/19/2020 12:32 PM | Anonymous

[Reposted after accidentally deleted.]

The book will offer three approaches to closing the gap between “school math” and mathematics: learning about mathematicians and their habits of mind, learning from other teachers’ experiences, and engaging with math ourselves as readers.

Which approach are you most comfortable with?  Excited about? Which do you think will be most challenging for you?



Comments

  • 01/20/2020 11:33 AM | Rene Chin
    I am most excited by learning from other teachers' experiences, because for me when I hear how other teacher's are applying their new learning or their best practices, I can then imagine me doing the same. Through this imagery I am then confident enough to put those observed practices into play with my first graders. I did this same process after a professional development day with Graham Fletcher. After watching his videos and hearing him talk, I visualized what estimating could look like in my classroom and we have been making strategic estimates on a weekly basis since!
    For me the most challenging gap to close will being engaged with my math self as I read through this text. I often find negative thoughts swirling in my mind that influence me as I read professional literature. I will need to be mindful of this and replace those negative voices that lack confidence with those that encourage me. I guess I will have to do for me what I try to do for my students every day; encourage and support.
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  • 01/20/2020 9:21 PM | Anonymous
    I fully agree with Rene. Interacting with other math teacher and observing their lessons, provide an alternative approach I can use and implement in the classroom. I have to say during my student teaching I had a great mentor. He would spend a couple of hours at the end of the day each Friday for the first three weeks to observe a few of my lessons. He wanted to find out the lesson delivery, the exploratory activities and the type of questions I was going to ask in the classroom to his honor students. My mentor would portray an honor student asking all sort of questions related to the lesson and I have to say that was very beneficial to me. When I look back, I am very grateful that I had a mentor who wanted me to succeed in my career growth as a math teacher.
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    • 01/22/2020 4:40 PM | Anonymous
      Finding a mentor or a like-minded colleague is so important to our professional growth as teachers! (In fact, they don't have to share our views... an additional perspective can give us new ideas for our teaching and help us look critically at what could be improved.)

      The good news is, in 2020, you can build these supportive PLN relationships online if you don't find them in your building. Check out the #MTBoS (Math-Twitter-Blog-o-Sphere) on Twitter or a Facebook discussion group on teaching.

      Karen
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  • 01/26/2020 9:45 PM | Shelly Jones
    Read this last week but just getting around to making my comment so I hope I write coherently. I love the line about how mathematicians say "maybe" or "it looks like" because it helps students to see that math is not always fast. Students usually don't like when teachers say these things because students want math to be cut and dry. But the "maybe it looks like" thinking is where the learning happens. Its the "back of the math" that is important. The Notice and Wonder. This is what we are trying to get students to do - think like a mathematician. It takes time though. So if we really want this type of thinking we must allow students to think, think and think some more. If we rush it, it won't happen. The more students get it the more confidence they get doing math.
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  • 02/01/2020 9:41 AM | Becky Lyman
    I am most excited to see how successful math teachers are teaching. Collaboration is so important I am an unashamed thief of other's techniques and methods. I think that I am going to be challenged to follow the habits of mind of mathematicians. I believe this may be challenging because of how I was taught myself. It'll be a retraining of my own thought processes to understand the way mathematicians think.
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