Monday, November 20, 2017

Questions from Twitter Slow Math Chat

Please answer the following questions thoughtfully.

If you did not post to Twitter, please come back to this blog are respond to the colleagues on here so there can be a meaningful conversation.










Thursday, October 12, 2017

Share your lessons

Share your lessons and ideas on how you have used Dan's strategies to create a more engaging classroom for your students. 

It would also be great to look at what others have posted and give them feedback. 

Thoughts on Dan's NCTM Beyond Relevance & Real World: Stronger Strategies for Student Engagement talk

Respond below with your thoughts about Dan's talk. 

How do you see this working in the classroom?

What were some of your AHA moments?

Don't forget to also be prepared to comment on your colleagues thoughts. 

CBU Course: How do we create student engagement in challenging mathematics?


Dan Meyer has a video from his 2016 NCTM talk. During this talk he shares several different ways to get students talking about math and engaged in thinking about math.

We will journey with Dan and learn what he says will help teachers move beyond relevance and real world to open up math classrooms with stronger strategies for student engagement.

The goal of this class will be listen to Dan's talk, blog or tweet about what we have learned, and hopefully create something to share along the way with our colleagues.

Requirements for the 3 hours of time:

1) Watch to Dan's talk on Vimeo during the week of October 23-27
2) Create one blog post on what you have learned from Dan during the week of October 30-Nov 3.
       a) I will have the questions to reflect on posted on my blog.
       -- Respond to at least one blog post from a colleague
3) We will meet the week of October 30-Nov 3 on Twitter to discuss online in real time for 40-45 minutes about what we have learned, how this can impact our classrooms, and how we are planning on using the information.  We will use the hashtag #cbmath.
4) Share a lesson or strategy in a follow up blog post with how you used the information you learned.
      -- Respond with your lesson link and give your colleagues feedback on this page.

Saturday, January 7, 2017

New learning for the new year.. My favorite strategy

I have really jumped on the Notice and Wonder train. This has really put the thinking and connecting in the hands of the students. It is a simple but ingenious strategy where students look at what they notice about a particular problem and then wonder by asking mathematical questions about the problem. This opens up the problem for students to start talking and and discussion their ideas.

With the Notice and Wonder, I like to pair this with Dan Meyer's "You can always add. You can't subtract" philosophy. Deleting as much as I can from a problem helps start that conversation about what we notice and wonder about a particular problem. Giving students small bits at a time builds that curiosity and buy-in for what we are going to tackle in class for the day. Students also like to predict what is coming next when problems are presented in this way. It can usually make for a loud and talkative classroom!

Another idea that has also transformed my classroom this year is Contemplate then Calculate. Bringing in this last strategy has been the perfect way to move into solving the problem. Many times I would rush into the solving part without having students take a moment to figure out what they already know. I like this strategy also because students then have a framework to share their thinking that has been helpful in getting kids to think about their thinking.

These three ideas have positively affected my classroom for this first half of the year. It has forced me to put the cognitive load on the students. Providing a classroom experience where students are challenged starts with the planning. Planning with these strategies has helped me take the call to action from Graham Fletcher's Becoming a Better Storyteller  seriously and purposefully. These three ideas have really reignited my passion for teaching and helping students become the best possible mathematician they can be!