Vision for Instruction in Mathematics Workshop

12/6 - The best part of my job is the fact that I get to attend some of the best trainings and classes.  I spent another great day at the AEA at a class called “Vision for Instruction in Math”. This class was perfect for me because it was developed for Instructional Coaches and Administrators that may not be as comfortable with the content.  We focused on 5 belief statements. For each statement, we were asked to think about our historical beliefs, how we were taught and how math instruction is currently taught in our buildings. The presenters modeled the same lesson several ways so we could really see what it was like to be a student in each scenario. We had some great discussions and it confirmed and challenged  many of my current beliefs on instruction. Here are several of my favorite takeaway statements:
  • Kids need to be in charge of their learning - the person doing the talking is doing the learning
  • Direct instruction comes at the end, during the justification.
  • Students need productive struggle, that’s where you see their mindset and brain growth.
  • We need to teach students to be thinkers not memorizers .
  • Not memorizing facts doesn’t mean that don’t have them committed to memory
  • All students need to be exposed to rich text and the strategies are the differentiation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Incorporation of Song in a Math Classroom

Rise/Run, that’s how you can find the slope of a line.  The 7th graders have been studying this concept and other concepts related to linear relationships.   Several students were struggling to remember some of the essentials. So, I added “song” into my classroom.  Trying something like this for me was a first. I have to be honest, when I thought it up, I thought only a few of the kids would like it and the rest would hate it. I anticipated bad attitudes. What did I get instead?  Excited 7th graders! I told them they could use any school appropriate song and they had to write their own words to match the assignment.  They had to incorporate one of 2 main concepts and I challenged them to add more for additional points. If they did not want to sing, they had the option of doing a chant/cheer.  I let them have all sorts of choice on this assignment---the size of their groups, the people in their groups, song vs cheer, and concept(s) covered (fro...
Read more

ESSA - A brief summary of Every Student Succeeds Act (please note...I am NOT an expert, this is just my personal summary of my day of learning.)

Yesterday I attended a session put on by the Department of Education.  It was a day of learning about the replacement to No Child Left Behind. This new act focuses on continuous improvement instead of accountability.  No longer should districts feel the “shame and blame” of the old SINA/DINA legislation. This new program for school improvement is called the “Every Student Succeeds Act”, referred to as “ESSA”   ESSA gives districts a score in several areas such as proficiency, growth as well as learning environment. Each category is weighed and students are measured against like peers. Schools that are below the 43.9 cut-off are marked “Targeted” or “Comprehensive”   Our elementary was given the “Targeted” status.  We are above the state average in proficiency in both reading and math (Reading 75.81 and Math 85.48) however, one our subcategories was not high enough.  Our low socioeconomic subcategory did not show the necessary growth. Our low s...
Read more

Welcome!

Image
Welcome to the Gladbrook-Reinbeck's TLC Blog!  The TLC leaders at Gladbrook-Reinbeck will be posting about the exciting changes happening in the district.  We are building the capacity of teachers and preparing students for their futures.  We hope you enjoy the GR TLC Blog!
Read more