The 3rd grade is starting fractions this week and I could not be more excited. Fraction work 3-5 is some of my favorite stuff. Last year we tried launching with an Always, Sometimes, Never activity and quickly learned, as we listened to the students, it was not such a great idea. We did not give […]
This week I had the chance to work with a third grade teacher, Andrea! Her class is just about to begin their unit on multiplication and division so she wanted to do Talking Points to see what they knew, and were thinking about, in relation to these operations. During our planning we discussed the ways in […]
This week, we are beginning our decimal unit. I decided to start with Talking Points today to hear how the students are thinking about decimals before we dig in. In developing the Talking Points, I asked the #mtbos for some ideas on decimal misconceptions/misunderstandings they see students have each year. Thanks to @MikeFlynn55, @AM_MathCoach, and […]
We are about to start out work with Polygons, so I decided to kick it off with Talking Points. If you have never read about them before you can check out my post or Elizabeth’s post to learn more. Here were the points my students were discussing: I had gotten these points by looking back […]
Since taking Jo Boaler’s course, “How to Learn Math,” I continually think about how I can effectively gauge my student’s mindset at the beginning of the school year. Last year, I tried a “Get to know you” form that students completed, asking questions such as: What do you feel you are really good at in […]
Ah, I am so excited to dust off the blog and get started with the new school year! There are so many exciting changes in our structures for RTI that I just cannot wait to get going! After some really honest conversations at the end of last year on how we were grouping and pulling […]
Each month, teachers choose their Learning Lab content focus for our work together. Most months, 1/2 of the grade level teachers choose to have a Math Learning Lab while the other 1/2 work with Erin, the reading specialist in an ELA Learning Lab. This month, however, we decided to mesh our ELA and Math Labs to do […]
Every year, we as teachers work so hard to establish a safe, open place for our students to learn. My goal in moving out of the classroom year and into a math specialist role is to also establish this same culture among our staff. A culture where teachers talk about instruction, math problems, and student […]
Since it was a bit too much for me to continually tweet, I decided to do a quick blog at lunch! Principle 1: Discussions Should Achieve a Mathematical Goal The first week of school my mathematical goals revolve around discussions about students’ mindset in terms of math, as well as the mathematical practices. I found […]
Last week, I asked the students to tell me everything they know, like, don’t like, confused about, wonder, feel…etc, about decimals. I used these responses in developing the decimal unit as far as where I should start and what types of things I was sure to address during the course of the unit. The responses […]
Math Minds 