Book Clubs

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching-blog/

This link above is to a website that is full of really cool resources for teachers on books. It has a blog that teachers can write about thing they have done in the classroom, and a page that takes you to a list of lesson plans incorporating books. One specific one I found was for a science class. The book they read was The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth, and they then had an assignment to create their own  trips to the center of the earth. They will have to design their transportation and then record 'what they see' as they travel to the center of earth. I really like this lesson plan because it allows for enjoyable reading in their content area as well as an exciting assignment that students would enjoy. I highly encourage everyone to look at the different resources this website has for teachers to use.

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Differentiation Synthesis Blog

My favorite part of this video was when "the students were actually doing science" because they were engaging in an activity to prove a theory and concept of science. Evaporation is not something that students usually do a 'science experiment' for since its a simple vocabulary word which is how I learned it. However, this teacher has her students go beyond memorizing the meaning of the word but helping them see this concept become real right in front of their eyes. I love how engaging this type of learning is and it often is multi-modal literacy. They are participating in hands-on activities and critical thinking through technology and through their communication in groups. I believe in hands-on engagement is going to be one of best tools to use in order to keep the students motivated in learning. Gaining a students focus is more than half of the battle because when they are attentive to the topic, they will have at least some interest and an ability to learn. The students in her class spoke about how they loved school! Also I think their interaction with the technology on her board was a super effective idea for creating equal participation and engagement. Students can use the board to interact with the concepts which furthers their thought processes on a topic. I would love to see how this works in a middle school math classroom. But I do know that from the classroom I was in on Wednesday, the students do not keep thinking the way we desire when left to simply complete a couple problems. In their groups while working on math, their minds were definitely on other things and liked to talk. I think activities that require a more engaged thinking are necessary.

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Resource Blog!

I found an article that discusses how different words in math can be very confusing. It talks about how words such as similar, combine, product, height, dividend, and operation. Each of these words have different meanings in everyday english then they do in math, which is why readigng strategies for a math class are so important. Below is an example of a frayer model which is a way to help students understand math words in a very direct manner. So whenever the read a 'little' math word they will not be confused to its meaning by remembering the models they correct for the words they need to know. I think this an easy way for teachers to help their students grasp an understanding on words. 

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http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/105137/chapters/Reading-in-the-Mathematics-Classroom.aspx

Reflection

I honestly really enjoyed creating the lesson plan with Hannah! It was exciting to find ways to use the strategy we were teaching within the lesson. I think that our desire to guide our classmates through the second KWL was not as perfect as we had planned which I think was due to picking a random topic in a Math class. I think if we would have looked into the background of symmetry more, we could have given a more accurate example of what it would look like to use this strategy in math class while students have just learned multiple concepts relating to the topic that was in question. It was challenging to come up with guiding questions for the knowledge and want to learn columns, and I would definitely spend more time on that part specifically in the future. But overall, I truly think that Hannah and I worked really well together and had fun creating a lesson. Going through the powerpoint and discussing what points we wanted to highlight went really for both us together, and I believe we executed that effectively in class. However, answering comments that were made in class was more difficult than I had imagined. It was hard to know what to say after someone made a point that agreed with what we were talking about. It was just weird because I realized I didn't know what else to say other than 'yes, great point' with an awkward pause moving on to the next question. This is something I hope I will be able to learn and get better at is responding to what students say in class. 

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P.S. Yes this is late :( I forgot to post it this morning 

Resource Blog #3

https://minds-in-bloom.com/implementing-giant-graphs/

I found a blog by a teacher who is passionate teaching her students in a way they will truly understand! Her blog is full of a ton of great ideas, but one that specifically caught my attention was something that related to a discussion we had in class about bringing the topics into real life. This teacher created a large graph on which students could actually stand on and be a part of and construct graphs on their own. This create collaboration and communication! After the group activity of hands-on learning, she has them answer questions about the deeper meaning as an assessment to evaluate whether the activity was successful in their understanding. She uses this time as a class discussion to continue their learning rather than as simply something to check for comprehension.

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Textbooks.... How to use them?

According to Subjects Matter, there are multiple ways to help your students figure out the textbook they will be using for that class. One of the options is actually something my teachers this semester are using in their classes. Most of my teachers have substituted textbooks with other materials that they have decided will be more valuable for us. Our math textbook was written by our Math teacher just like the teacher in the Subjects Matter book, and our other two professors both picked out specific articles and books for us to read throughout the semester. Obviously they had to research and read these materials to determine if they were going to be the best option for class. Honestly, this opened my eyes to how willing we need to be as teachers to search for the bestsellers resources for our students. The materials given to us are not always the options we should choose.

One of my favorite activities to use with a textbook was the textbook circles, however I was not exactly sure what this would like in a math class when I was reading about the activity. After I was thinking about it, I was coming up with ideas and ways that it would work in a math class. I think that one of the best ways is to have them read through a section that has been tough for them to understand. I would create guiding questions for them to ask each other and determine what the key words were for them to understand. Then I would have a problem for them to solve together to help them walk through the concepts they read and see if they were able to comprehend the section.

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How many resources for students are needed?

http://matheminutes.blogspot.com
This link is a blog that I found through an IB Math teacher resources page. I wanted to post the entire blog because it has so many articles and ideas for extra materials to use in class. The teachers posted different teaching methods and ideas they used in class for others to look at and potentially use. There are some with different types of readings or even some with different types of activities to use in class rather than constantly using the textbook. It is a much better idea to use several avenues to teach from since many students learn without the textbook. This source is specifically for math classes, so I think it will be super helpful for us to have this for examples of what teachers do in their classrooms.





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