Greenhaus Education and Other "Effects"

In the first post of my Common Core series, I discussed the importance of really looking at the Standards of Mathematical Practices (SMP), because the title alone is not enough. You cannot assume that each title of the 8 SMPs gives enough information to truly know what students should be saying and doing to enhance their mathematical understanding. The descriptive narratives for each practice are necessary reading to clearly make good instructional decisions that will truly support student understanding of mathematics My last post focused on SMP #4, Model with Mathematics. In this post, I'd like to choose another of the SMPs, and be a little more explicit in breaking down the structure to show how both the title and the narrative help inform instruction. Then, hopefully, you can do your own investigation of the remaining SMPs.  This is a great exercise to do with collaborative groups of teachers - maybe your next team/faculty meeting?! All of this is from work I have done bei...

I am tired of the #CommonCore bashing, so I am just going to start writing some posts about things I have learned that have helped me realize how powerful and SUPPORTIVE of student learning these standards and practices can be. Don't get me wrong - I never needed to be convinced that the Common Core State Standards for Math (CCSSM) were a good thing for math education.  I cheered their adoption because to me, these standards supported what I had been practicing and preaching, both as a teacher and a professional development provider. But - even though I have spent the last several years studying and coaching others in implementing the Common Core in a variety of ways, I just recently learned more to solidify, for me, their power. It was sort of an ah-ha moment: if I, who consider myself very familiar with the CCSSM, just learned something new, imagine how those who have spent little, if any, time with these standards (i.e. parents, news reporters, politicians) could benefit fro...

In perusing the internet for edtech and math news of interest, I came across Sony Global Education Inc.' s Global Math Challenge.   On September 27 you can get online, take a brainteaser math test, competing against mathematicians (young and old) all over the world.  Wow! According the the description, " GMC is full of beautiful illustrations, helping to put math puzzles into a real-world context". This is true if you look at the sample.  You can sign up for the free-Trial Plan, where you will just get your score, or the Standard Plan, in which you actually get to review your results and compare your results with all the other competitors. There are some sample questions for you to 'try it out' before signing up.  Which of course I did.... I was much relieved to find I could actually answer them, though I did get #3 wrong because I misinterpreted the question (I assumed we started from 2, vs. using the given five already assembled). What I loved was t...

I have been doing some independent research on technology use in classrooms.  With all the news about 1:1 classrooms and students using technology apps to learn, I was curious about what is actually happening.  Some of my findings have made me really question whether some of our approaches - i.e. 1:1, computers vs. tablets, are really supporting the way students are learning with technology. I found this interesting report from Project Tomorrow called "From Chalkboards to Tablets: The Emergence of the K-12 Digital Learner"    with some fascinating statistics regarding the technology students are using to help them learn.  You should download the full report (available as a PDF), but I will share a few of the findings here. One thing that stood out for me is the prevalence of smartphone use by students, especially as they get into the upper grades.  Table 1 below shows the use of both personal and school provided devices.  Very apparent that 1:1 and...

I hadn't really thought about QR code use in educational settings until my recent exposure and personal experience with a new app. EDU + , released by Casio to support their Classwiz scientific calculator . It got me interested in how QR codes are being utilized in classroom settings. In my research I have found some interesting suggestions for using QR codes in education. Steven.Anderson has some great postings and links about QR coding ,which led me to several articles and resources. One in particular, Tom Barrett's slide show on " 40 Interesting Ways to use QR Codes in the Classroom " gave me insight into the possibilities of QR codes for teaching and learning. I particularly liked idea #7 of adding QR codes to word documents for students to check their answers. He has 40, so it's worth a look! Basically, QR codes are information - up to 4000 characters. QR codes can be used to link students to more information (reviews, pictures, graphs). Embedding QR c...