Take 5

I have been meaning to blog, reflect and discuss our Take 5 problem solving approach, but have been in the whirlwind of finishing term 1 and starting term 2, but here goes. For those of you who haven't seen the template, our Take 5 model is linked here.
Last term, specifically with our 10A area unit, I introduced, modeled and spent a fair amount of time with our Take 5 problem solving strategy. Although I have the buy-in on the importance of all of the steps of Take 5 and the necessity of modeling and think-alouds that needs to go with it, my kids didn't take to it as well as I'd hope. I know that it isn't going to be a perfect system for everybody and the key is that it is a tool for those students who need a tool.
In general, I've found that the students who would benefit because it would slow them down and help them pay more attention to the details don't like it because they see it as unnecessary work. And those students who usually get overwhelmed and don't attempt word problems, may start with steps one and two, but it doesn't seem to help them visualize the problem and process the right strategy so they still get stuck or proceed in the wrong direction.
I'm curious how everyone has used the Take 5 problem solving strategy, how you introduced it, how often you use it, if you assess how it is being used, and your students' reactions toward it. I'm also curious if anyone else is pinpointing similar issues like students not being able to visualize the problem and choose the right strategy. I think it has to do with the transferability of notes and examples to a different setting in the word problem. How do you work with this issue?

What's working, what's not

I thought I would throw out what's working for me and what's not. Perhaps someone can take from the good and help with the bad.

What's working

• PBS with tickets and a raffle on Fridays. (Thanks Annette and Jen!)
• Handing each student a card with the coordiantes for a point and having them plot their point on the board one at a time. (Even my kids who ususally do nothing did this)
• Positivity
• Concrete, explicit directions
• Taking an interest in each student (The whole "I noticed ________" thing from the Teaching with Love and Logic book)
• Collaborating

What's not working

• 5th hour. It is still a challenge for me. I have many students failing the class and they seem to be starting to give up hope for the term. There's this "I don't care" attitude for many of the students in this class.
• Keeping the students' on task for the whole hour. This is primarily 5th period again, but also in other classes. I have tried to have a variety of activities for each day so it won't seem so monotonous, but once they lose focus it is very difficult to rope them back in for the next activity.

I would love any feedback and would like to know what's working for everyone else.

Teaching student expectations

I keep getting reminded that my expectations and the students' ideas of my expectations are quite different. It is hard to imagine that a direction such as "read this page" conjures up different ideas to me than the students. I have realized that "reading" to them is abstract so I continually have to be very explicit on what I want to see and hear. I can't make the student read and they know that which I think is why it becomes abstract to them. Instead, I remind them that I want to see the books open, their eyes in the book, the book right side up (just in case) and their mouths closed. This is much more concrete and I have much better results.

The next project I want to tackle is more obvious reminders/cues/concrete examples of what I expect if students get stuck. Too often, they are stuck and just don't have coping strategies in their toolboxes, such as how to use their notes or the textbook to help them. Then then talk to their friends and get frustrated when I come down on them for not working, saying they tried and were stuck and I hadn't read their mind to come help them. They feel like they have done every thing they could so why am I so upset. Plus, it is much easier to be defensive and blame someone else.

I have observed that students have a hard time transferring information from notes to other problems. Instead of blaming the students for being lazy, let's figure out a way to help teach and reteach these strategies and remind students of our expectations. I am working on a log type system for my students to record what steps they take when they get stuck with very visible choices posted in the room. More to follow, but let me know what you think!

Struggles with the SmartBoard

This is a cross post with the Global Learner's blog.
After taking a math technology course this summer, one of my projects was to prepare a tech lesson extending past our comfort zone. With me, it's the SmartBoard. I planned a lesson around congruency shortcuts of triangles because I thought that the ability to manipulate the tools (ruler and protractors) as well as the triangles themselves would be an appropriate use of the capabilities of the SmartBoard. I felt a had a great lesson, with background-building vocabulary, questions with answers covered with the screen shade, sequential topics to investigate which short-cuts work, and conversation topics for each slide--all prepared on the SmartBoard notebook.

However, as I'm sure we've all experienced, the lessons that seem great in theory flop in the classroom. I struggled very hard to line up my ruler and protractor using my finger, so measuring 3 pieces of two different triangles was long and frustrating. Even sorting objects by dragging them around seemed difficult and tedious. If I got a student brave enough to attack the tools, it still left the rest of the class unengaged and bored quickly. I adapted the rest of the lesson in order to cover the main points. Any writing I did was very hard to read since my orientation was off no matter how many times I tried to readjust (and my SmartBoard was against the wall.)

The main points of the SmartBoard that I would like to exploit are the ability to work out problems and record in real time and/or save and the manipulablity. Without these features, I don't see much difference than projecting on a regular screen. I try to be very cautious about using technology effectively and not just for the sake of using technology. However, I do not feel that the ability to save is great enough to offset the difficulties in writing and reading the work. And the ability to manipulate items can be powerful... for the person doing it, but leaves the rest of the class unengaged. It would be no different than me manipulating something from my laptop or with a wireless mouse for the class to view on a regular screen.

With this, I am looking forward to the Global Leaner chat this week, which happens to be about SmartBoards. I would love feedback on how the SmartBoard is used effectively in your classes, especially with secondary students. How does it keep the whole class engages? How does it benefit students who miss class? How can the benefits over projecting on a screen be maximized? And how can all of this be done on a regular basis?

Nice Change

Who has all the time to blog? During conferences I do. I just had a cool thing go on today. I was talking with Paul in W118 about how I don't know what to do with my 5th hour and how I get real frustrated with them. He suggested to just try putting on a super positive front. I had to have them take some notes because we are starting a new topic and he suggested addressing the class and telling them how great they are going to do on this topic and how I need them to pay very close attention and take notes for the next 10 minutes so that they can be as successful as I know they can be. I tried to keep this positive mentality going all the way to class, I greeted students at the door by name and told all of them hello. I was super positive and front loaded them with compliments and how I know they will be very successful....etc. The crazy thing is that it worked! The students were very productive today and exceeded my expectations on their assignment. Just wanted to give anyone else who's facing frustration with their classes some hope. Fake it until they make it.

PD sessions

Hey Guys and Gals,
I want to share a few thoughts about the PD sessions we have had up to this date. Personally, I am not very comfortable standing up front as if you were my students. I also don't feel I was prepared to be the presenter/facilitator, as I didn't really know what to plan for. After talking to Kevin I feel I will have a better chance to get ready ahead of time, when I know what our task will be and a calendar of objectives will be established. I propose moving to a setting where we will be arranged in a more collaborative setting, where you are all facing each other, rather than front center as if in a classroom. I have tables and chairs in my room. Any objections to moving?

I also welcome any thoughts, suggestions, or criticisms you have in how our meetings are managed. You can even post anonymously or speak to me personally or by e-mail if you prefer.
TD

1st Full Week Completed

Hello! Congratulations to everyone for completing the first week of school. I know many of us have had some difficulties, but I do feel like I might be starting to get the hang of this new teaching thing. Not to say that I don't have a long way to go, but I am starting to feel a bit more comfortable.

4 Days...

Hey guys, after 4 days of teaching, I feel like an adult again. Whoever said that teaching is any easy job and that anyone can do it, didn't have 2 brain cells to rub together.;-) I love being in front of the class room. It's the only place that I can speak in front of a crowd without getting red. The best part is when you do a lesson, hoping and praying that some of the students will take an interest, and you look up...it's completely quiet and everyone's working. It doesn't happen often (yet), but when it does, it makes my day! Anyone have a moment like that?

Just Checking In

I just wanted to let people know that I am on the blog.

New School Year, New Blog

Welcome to Adams City and Welcome Back to another school year at Adams City. By building a strong community within our math department, we can all grow and the students can find sucess. Let's use this post as a test for you all to comment on and practice with the blog.
What's your favorite part about being a math teacher? My favorite part is that I get to make corny math jokes ALL day long and students just shake their heads! It's even better when a student makes a math joke!

CCTM- A Framework for a Balanced Math Program

presented by Carla Haas, and Julie Schmatz, Mesa County Valley Schools District #51
Mostly based on Five Easy Steps to a Balanced Math Program by Larry Ainsworth and Jan Christinson
The concept was intended to not be a new Math Program, but a framework to teach the existing curriculum and bring in components to help students be more successful at Math. I have a big packet if anyone wants copies of a presentation and some excepts from the book.
The five steps are

• Computational Skills (math review and mental math)
• Problem Solving
• Conceptual Understanding
• Mastery of Math Facts
• Common Formative Assessments

The main takeaways

• A portion of each class should be set aside for reviewing math concepts and skills that they had already learned and refine their number sense. Their structure seemed very similar to our Math'sMates, only Math'sMates has done all of the work of writing the problems and structuring it for us.
• The mental math is asking them a series of questions with integer or rounded numbers which sharpens their arithmetic skills
• Problem-solving as defined by NCTM Principles and Standards involves "Engaging in a task for which the solution method is not know in advance...and should be encouraged to reflect on their thinking" This seems to be more about strategizing and reflecting rather than the computations to get there. I think we all hope that the computations are the easy part of the problem solving for our students. Judging whether something is a reasonable response is also an essential part. I think this fits with our Take 5 program
• Conceptual Understanding is different than the procedural understanding. The focus should be on the conceptual understanding, which I'm sure most teachers strive for, however, I'm not sure we (me included) put the emphasis in the amount of time we spend on the conceptual vs. procedural. What do we spend our time teaching? How do we teach conceptual instead of procedural or more than procedural? How do we know if they get the concept rather than the procedure? What do we do if they don't get the concept?
• Memorization should follow instruction of conceptual knowledge--this produces mastery of math facts
• The use of patterns is most useful in helping students discover and emphasize the patters in our number systems. Building on previous math facts that they know, provide daily practice, and hold students accountable--including asking for parents support
• Commom Formative Assessments--As described by Ainsworth "They provide participating teachers with the timely feedback needed to differentiage instruction and thus better meet the diverse learning needs of their students." How can we restructure our curriculum to include so much cummulative review? How do formative assessments fit into standards based grading? Our current common assessments are not formative, they are summative. If we want to change our curriculum so that these assessments are formative, what changes need to happen in the pacing and structure of the units and what changes have to happen to the tests? Is MAPS used as a formative assessment? What about upperclass?
• These assessments should be designed collaboratively, classroom (individual--non-common?) end of unit assessment and scoring guide should be designed to match the common formative assessments
• The assessments should be scored and analyzed in data teams.

I would bet that these books have been a heavy influence in our current curriculum and assessment development since I have heard alot of the same language in our curriculum and assessment meetings. Anyone interested in a book goup?

Anyone interested in a book

CCTM- CoMMIT

presented by Jim Hogan, Aurora PS, Melissa Colsman, Cherry Creek PS, and Rachael Coulehan, Aurora PS
CoMMIT stands for Colorado Metro Math Intervention Team (or something very similar). Glenn Bruckhart is participating as well as many other concerned about math and math interventions.
Most of the presentation was around RtI as outlined by CDE.
Most schools have issues with students struggling with Math. This is an informal group that is meeting to discuss the issue and start to collaborate around why this is an issue and what can be done about it. The first thing that was identified was to develop common vocabulary around RtI, general and special education, and math program since the group includes such broad spectrum of participants. Currently, this group is still forming, gaining common vocab and identifying what the questions are. Most interventions discussed at the presentation were not possible due to other factors such as limited district resources, cumbersome such as involving so much paperwork, and unrealistic such as pulling students when there is no time to pull them. Even though there is a lot of ground to cover, it was exciting that this group is working on math interventions with no other political or hidden agendas--everyone just wants to help get students be successful at math.
The next CoMMIT meeting is on Dec 4th from 8am -11am in Littleton and Math on the Planes is scheduled for February 29th and March 1st with CCLD, Coordinated Campaign for Learning Disabilities. For information about these upcoming events contact Rachael Risley at rarisley@aps.k12.co.us

cctm- TI applications

presented by TI rep wgarciano@ti.com, more info at TI's educational website.

• Demoed some of the applications on the TI-84 plus silver addition.
• There is an application to graph inequalities and within that application is a way to graph a vertical line, i.e. X = 3. The other calculators only graphed functions of Y. This X= screen is only available with the inequality graph.
• There are pdfs on the sites of each application that describe the nuts and bolts for students to use it.
• The transformation graphs application looked very useful since that is a hard concept for our students to understand. This application allowed the parent function to be graphed and the constants manipulated manually, or run through an animation that showed dynamically the affects of some of those constants in transformations.
• Looks worth spending some time on students after the initial concept is taught. These calculators are allowed on standardized test such as ACT, AP and IB tests so hopefully this can help.

I am interested to see if these tools help. Maybe some action research within the department so see if they get a better or worse grasp on the concepts and how it helps with problems solving and/or test taking? Anyone interested?

In addition, there is a free TI-Nspire workshop at :

Littleton Education Services Center, 5776 Crocker St., Littleton CO 80120 on

Saturday, October 27, 2007 from 8:30-noon

Register by email asummers@lps.k12.co.us and include name, school, and district

CCTM- Diagnosing Secondary Students' Conceptual Gaps

presented by Glenn Bruckhart and Bernice German of the consulting company, Peak Achievement
By far the most power presentation. And who doesn't respect Glenn Bruckhart and his work?
The team of Peak Achievement is working on helping teachers better assess their students, interpreting these assessments to identify conceptual gaps and providing professional development on how to fill them. The documentation they provided was from a 9th grade pilot with previous low unsatisfactory scores on CSAP. After 5 months of working with Peak and receiving grade level instruction and peak's intervention program, over 45% of students moved one or more grade levels. The class averaged a gain of 45 points when the state's average was a 14 point gain.
The biggest conceptual gap that they identified in these 9th graders was subtraction. Everyone was shocked that it went back that far. The big takeaways:

• The assessments they used to see where the students are should not measure what they can do, rather, how they think. The example assessment not only asked student to solve a addition or subtraction problem, but to explain their thinking in words or pictures. (contact me for copies of the material from the presentation)
• Students had trouble with subtraction and division which may be connected to the fact that they are the non-commutative operations.
• Students start math at counting. They start with concrete examples. Ideally, it moves from counting concrete examples to using numbers to represent these concrete objects. This representation is then used in operations which goes into abstract concepts. If we don't use this sequence properly to move students from concrete to representational to abstract thinking, they don't really understand the concept and may or may not learn the algorithm. That is not enough to build on with higher math.
• The example we did at our tables is take 46 popsicle sticks and bundle groups of tens with rubber bands. The four bundles represented the four in the tens column and the 6 loose sticks were the 6 ones in the ones column. We were asked to take away 19. This required unbundling at least one of the groups of tens. Unbundling them clearly kept the idea that the bundle was a still ten popsicle sticks. We were representing the problem 46-19 with concrete examples. The words "take away" 19 is directional which may help students understand that starting with 19 and taking away 46 is different. It would be better to use this directional and concrete language rather then minus, subtract or even borrow (from the ten's column).
• Students should be able to recognize what numbers are referring to. The assessment item asked what is 12 apples + 25 oranges. Students who answered 37 should be asked 37 of what? This is directly relatable to algebra when student should know that 2 + 3x means two of something and three of something different. This also can help students to identify useful and non-useful numbers in word problems. It is assessing how well students have bridged from concrete to representational thinking. If they don't understand what numbers are standing for, they can't really do the math correctly, unless they get lucky.

I did speak with with both presenters and Bernice would really like to work with our district. I explained that our PL set up is moving away from inviting outside experts come work with us. They are working with another district to provide PD for some staff and having them go back and relay it to their colleagues, so they may consider that option for us, if we ever get to that point.

First, I know that the concentration of most efforts and energy right now is trying to set-up the curriculum to avoid such gaps and I agree that it is important to get out of reactive mode and into proactive, quality first instruction mode. After that is complete, we can work on such interventions. However, I really think that we could use the experts within our district to provide a similar intervention. The key is admin buy-in and are we ready as a school/district/community to acknowledge such gaps? What do you think about some of the ideas in the presentation? What type of gaps would you guess some of our struggling students have? Do you think something like this would be worthwhile? How do you think the students and community would react if we found similar gaps and provided similar interventions? What types of gains would you predict?

CCTM- Proportional Reasoning

presented by Jimmy Frickey and Russ Rendon, Eagle Rock School based on chapter of John Van deWalle's book Elementary and Middle School Mathematics, teaching developmentally.
Even if the title suggests otherwise, I think this may be one of the most important books I should read to be a better high school math teacher--as judged by student success. I'd like to see if we have any copies available through the district and if anyone else is interested in doing a PL book study--all contents included.
Takeaways:

• Proportional reasoning is the cornerstone of Algebra*
• A key developmental milestone is the ability of a student to begin to think of a ratio as a distinct entity, different from the two measures that made it up.*
• Elementary focuses on relationships resulting from adding and subtracting whereas proportions involve multiplicative relationships.
• Proportional thinking is not "cross multiply and divide"
• Proportional thinking is recognizing direct and indirect correlations, quantitatively and qualitatively.
• Proportional thinking is evident in fractions, similarity, indirect measurement, data graphs, probability, percents, rates, linear relationships, trig and many more math concepts as well as other contents. Proportional thinking is in many science topics, including biology and chemistry, art such as mixing colors on a color wheel in different proportions to determine the desired color, health since there are so many rates involved, economics, including unemployment rates and interest rates, social studies, such as currency exchange rates, bad press vs number of votes, allocation of resources-is it proportional? etc...
• Incorporating Proportional reasoning in other subjects can enhance most other contents.
• It is estimated that more than half of the adult populations cannot be viewed as proportional thinkers.* It might be interesting to have the students "quiz" other teachers and staff so and start a community initiative, so they students feel not so alone in the endeavor and appreciate its importance in seeing other adults make efforts to learn it.
• Premature use of rules encourages students to apply rules without thinking and, thus, the ability to reason proportionally often does not develop.*

*Taken directly from copy of John Van deWalle's book.

What do you think? Anyone interested in a PL book study? How can we get this message across to the whole school or community?

CCTM- Learning to Read Mathematics

presented by Sharon Benson
Mostly elementary and middle school based concepts and strategies. What I took away

• Students skip to pictures/diagrams and guess what they have to do to solve the problems, especially second language learners
• Sometimes text is misleading, sometimes pictures/diagrams are misleading especially if different than what students pictured when reading text. The conflict makes them shut down and not attempt a problem
• ESL students get the big, important, explicit vocab words but need help with the little words
• Ask students to highlight words/phrases/diagrams that they don't understand to visually see what the roadblocks are for students. May use this to ask students to exchange papers and have another student try to rewrite highlighted parts in their own words. If both students don't understand it, they may be more willing to admit it to the teacher and ask for help.
• foldable for Frayer model to help kinesthetic learners organize vocab components
• color code your word wall into categories makes a word wall even more useful
• constantly use formal and informal vocab at the same time as a behavioral pattern of teacher--students pick up on our patterns and will start to do the same, thereby increasing their vocab. Ex. Remember that the diagonals of a kite are perpendicular, cross at 90 degrees, perpendicular. The more we repeat, the more it sticks.
• As last part of problem solving process, have students restate what the problem was in their own words, this helps them recognize if they've missed anything
• There is a graphic in my notes about layers of word problems with what the question is asking on the outside and the solution on the inside. A good exercise may be to give them a number (solution) and have them work backwards through the process to eventually come up with their own problem. This makes them more aware of each step. When they feel confident with each step, they may not be as intimidated by going the right way. I may need to demonstrate this with a screen capture later :)

What do you think?

Laptop Cart more hassle than what it's worth?

Hi guys, I gotta do a little venting here cuz this is getting frustrating. This math cart is great to have but with only 15 computers im wondering if it is more trouble that what it's worth! When students are sharing a computer they are busy talking and not listening to instructions and then I have to repeat myself to each group over and over again. The gizmos must be done in pairs instead of individually. I also tried to have them print documents from my web page to find that not all laptops have printers installed.

Today has been a disaster with my first two blocks.

Students dont remember their passwords, not all have gmail accounts yet, gmail and google dont work together without setting up a google account. It's taken almost the entire class periods to just get set up and logged on to the gizmos! Im also finding out that these students aren't as tech advanced as we might think. Yeah they can use cell phones, but when it comes to links and sites and passwords etc.. they are lost. I know this all takes time and in the long run is worth the trouble, but the hard part is trying to fit this in with our curriculum time constraints. In trying to do a lesson on circles through the gizmo, i have actually wasted a day. I think it's just faster and easier to project it on the board and work as a class then as pairs or groups. But that is the same as we have always done it. Any suggestions or ideas?

Im gonna try it again for my last two classes today. Lets see how it goes.

Principals Common Assessment

Thanks to Regina Stewart and Jennifer Svihlik for helping create the Principals common assessment. I currently have the original and will make copies for the 8 sections of principals. I'd like to test tomorrow (9/20) because we pushed back the test from today for maps testing and that thursday is the only day we had available. Anybody got spare scansheets to share?

Geometry Classes

Hi guys, I've created a quick reference document for some of the conjectures we pass over quickly in Geometry. The ones about angles in Chapter 2. Students can print it and use it in class. It's posted on my blog site Gee-Im-A-Tree.

Also there is a good Gizmo lesson on Area of parallelograms and triangles. It has some cool animations and shows the relationship between are of rectangle and parallelogram.

Dept update

Alright Math Gurus, here's the skinny.

LAPTOPS
We have a MATH DEPT laptop cart with LCD, printer and wireless access point. Please contact me if you'd like to use it - maybe a wiki or something later.

ASSESSMENTS
According to the curriculum guides on starnet, we are all supposed to be testing on Wednesday 9/12. At the department meeting it was decided to push it back to Friday 9/14. No discussion was made about grading, or when copies would be made available to teachers for their classes.

MATH MATES
9th and 10th grade teachers, you should be using the "math mates" worksheets in class. If you have questions see me. If you have extra or need more go to SW200 closet.

INVENTORY
If you still need calculators - Tom Deaguero is keeping track of those, please see him in W202 to check some out. I believe he's got the graphing calculator and only the CSAP calculators are otherwise available in Regina's room SW207.

If you have textbooks I still need each number from you and your calculator count, please.

There was dicussion about the Pre-calc books, and ordering more. If you're teaching this class, or might be (Anatoly, Heidi, & Tom), can I get an estimate of how many we need to order? Also, the geometry books look pretty bad also; however, there's a closet full of them.

BUDGET
Mr. Paxton went to bat at the last board meeting and got our copy budget back, so we'll up the reimbusements on supplies to $200.

Don't forget to participate in the blog
http://achsmathtech.blogspot.com/

and the wiki
http://acsd14technology.wikispaces.com/