Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Open-Ended 2nd-3rd grade PARCC-Type Challenge Activity

Child will either draw a diagram, be given grid paper (1"x1") or use a bucket of at least 30 unit tiles.

DIRECTIONS TO CHILD
(a) Make the largest square you can from 18 small equal squares. Use the grid paper to show this.
(c) Any left over? If yes, how many? (d) Which of the following multiplication problems is your big square most like?
3x3? 4x4? 5x5?
(e) How many more squares do you need to make the next larger square? Draw it or use tiles.

This is just a springboard for your own ideas. Your reaction to this?
How would YOU word this type of question? Share!

Saturday, February 7, 2015

MathNotations Survey - Best Ed Reforms Over Past 25 Years

My tweet @dmarain on 2-6-15 has generated hundreds of views but no opportunity to freely exchange ideas. I thought about setting up a twitter chat but, for now,I've opted for my blog as the vehicle.

So here's the question which is trending ...

What changes in education over the past 25 yrs do you think have most impacted how children learn?

Since this blog focuses mostly on issues in *math* ed
I'll kick this off by suggesting

1) Increased communication in the math classroom. I favor a balanced approach of direct instruction and posing open-ended nonroutine problems requiring team effort. NCTM promoted the importance of greater student-student and student-teacher interaction in 1989 and this is far more evident in our classrooms today.

2) Technology of course but specifically which technologies have had the greatest effect on learning math skills and math concepts. As a math educator, the access to and strategic use of powerful graphing calculators has enabled students to solve traditional problems in a variety of ways (multiple representation), explore topics in greater depth and model data more efficiently.

Anyone remember great software like Green Globs from the early 90's? We've come a long way since then with interactive geometry and algebra software and apps and we're still just at the toddler stage!

Haven't even mentioned the many curriculum projects, Common Core, and assessments but opinions on their benefits should vary widely.

OK, your turn. I hope this prompt will encourage comments but that's up to you. If you'd rather use twitter or other social network sites let me know. A chat on twitter might be the way to go in 2015.

So what is your Top 5 List of most significant changes?