The Function(al) Teacher

Today's class was a very humbling experience. One of the math problems we explored today was actually a problem created by Liisa's mom! And to my surprise, it had me stumped. Here's the problem in case you wanted to take a stab at it: Seems simple right? It's your typical "guess how many jelly beans are in the jar" question that you see at raffles, except you're given enough pieces of information that you should be able to come up with the right answer.  Like always, I overcomplicated math and instantly resorted to tackling this question algebraically. However, my algebra skills failed me and I didn't get the right number (my final answer was a decimal so something definitely went wrong during the process)!  When Liisa asked one of my classmates to share her answer, I was shocked and almost jealous that I hadn't thought of the question that way. My classmate had simply drawn out a jar and split it up based on the information given. S...

Tasks are usually associated with a negative connotation. When given a task, we usually groan and hear something like "uuugghhhhh" and try to procrastinate to avoid doing it. People aren't usually excited about tasks.  When I look at the word task through an educational lens, it almost seems as though the words "teacher" and "ask" got married and became "one"; task. (This was not scientifically proven, it was just an epiphany I had while trying to think of a clever name for this blog post)! But if you think about it, it makes sense right?! In school, tasks are basically teachers ask ing you to do something. Condense it by combining the two and voilà; task!  There are several different kinds of tasks. Liisa started the class by asking us to write down words that described math. Different groups interpreted this task differently. My group wrote words that we thought described math as a whole, whereas other groups wrote more tangible thin...

In the past, the words technology and classroom would never be found in the same sentence. I remember when I was in elementary school, cell phones were just starting to become the "thing". However, they were prohibited from the classroom. So instead of passing notes behind the teacher's back, we would try to stealthily send our friends text messages under our desks. Some of my teachers would actually collect all of our phones as we entered the classroom. Nowadays, technology is found in almost every classroom and schools encourage a "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) environment. I can see the value in both stances. Back in the day, teachers didn't allow phones in the classroom because they were seen as a distractor and a form of disrespect. But since phones and electronic devices are so prevalent now and most students have them, teachers can use them as a learning tool in the classroom. Since students feel the need to be connected to their phones 24/7 and g...

I've head this statement countless times: "I've never been good at math...I will never understand math. It just never came naturally to me". I think this statement is so interesting since it goes completely against what we learned in class. According to Jo Boaler, EVERYONE can learn math to the highest levels. In fact, that is number 1 on her list of positive norms to encourage in math class. There is such a strong stigma around math and many people think it is just black and white. The common belief is either you get math, or you don't. However, this is not the case. Mathematicians aren't born mathematicians are they? Absolutely not! It's something they work at and hone over time. As an educator, it's my goal to reverse this way of thinking. I know I will encounter many students who have had terrible experiences with math and will feel like giving up (or not even bother trying) because they have been fed this lie throughout their entire lives. Will ...

Being a prospective teacher, the word differentiation sounded very daunting at first. We are told that we must differentiate our instruction, our assessment and sometimes our environment to suit the specific needs of our students. When you have a class of 30 students, that's 30 times that you'll have to differentiate since each student will have their unique set of needs. That's 30 different lessons/activities that you'll have to come up with. However, this is not necessarily the case. There are times where you can use strategies that will cover several students' needs. As I learned in my other classes and as Liisa demonstrated in class, the goal is more of a universal design concept where the differentiation is a model that uses strategies to target some students but benefit most. In other words, it's meant for a specific group of students but the majority can also benefit from it. I also discovered that asking open questions is a great way to implement diffe...

As an academic student, I rarely ever used manipulatives - especially not in high school math. When we explored the different maniuplatives in class yesterday, I found myself resorting to the abstract math concepts that I learned in school and found it quicker and easier to solve the problems that way. However, I am aware that not all students learn this way. I had to challenge myself to change my thinking and to put myself in the shoes of my future students. I had to fiddle around in unfamiliar territory and figure out how some of the manipulatives worked. I had never even seen some of the tools prior to yesterday. For instance, I had never seen algebra tiles before and it took me a little while to figure out how to use them! Whenever I see an algebraic expression, I'm instantly foiling the expression and collecting like terms in my head. But with the tiles in front of me, I was forced to use them and was surprised at how well they worked! Algebra Tiles After exploring the...

But what if your gut feeling is wrong? I don't want to be wrong. I hate being wrong. To kick off yesterday's class, Liisa began by giving us a question (would you rather have $500 or quarters stacked as tall as you?) and told us to give an impulse answer; to go with our gut. OR My gut reaction was to choose the $500. Here was my train of thought: I'm short. (5' 1.5" - yes, I have to include that extra .5 inch because it makes a difference and technically, if you follow math rules and round up to the nearest inch, I'm 5' 2" 😉 ). So, there's no way that my height would equate to $500 in quarters (2000 quarters). The good news is, my gut feeling was right in this case. But what if it wasn't? I don't like the feeling of being wrong. As Liisa mentioned, this is a big problem for many math students. When asked a question, students are hesitant to answer aloud out of fear of being wrong. However, Liisa shared a very useful...