tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2256375873271579383.post4169072515287977509..comments2024-03-27T23:55:01.532-07:00Comments on Divisible by 3 [Andrew Stadel]: CCSS Workshop 2013Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06699410662148629132noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2256375873271579383.post-62456798014651878212013-06-06T15:52:26.702-07:002013-06-06T15:52:26.702-07:00You are an incredible teacher and mentor. Presenti...You are an incredible teacher and mentor. Presenting the 8 mathematical practices in an hour is a daunting task. In that time you did an extraordinary job on constructing and critiquing. Your estimation, and math mistakes activities address this well. <br /><br />If you had the entire day you could have discussed all eight in more depth. If there's future PD planned, I make the following suggestion to address the first mathematical practice: Make sense of problems and persevere. Perhaps you could give the teachers a group worthy task that allows them to experience productive struggle. The task is designed with multiple entry points and everyone in the group is held accountable. If the group is stuck, you pose questions or provide them with a resource card for them to consider. <br /><br />Our district has been creating these group worthy tasks during our professional development time. They do incorporate multiple practices but there's a particular focus on making sense of problems and persevering.<br /><br />Kudos to you!<br /><br />Mary Doomshttp://teacherleaders.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2256375873271579383.post-53806260761744717402013-06-06T08:10:16.991-07:002013-06-06T08:10:16.991-07:00Echoing what Chris Shores said, you definitely hav...Echoing what Chris Shores said, you definitely have command of that room, and knowing how difficult the time constraints placed on you can be, you did an incredible job. <br /><br />To you point regarding letting students find, correct, and alert each other to what the mistakes are, I'm finding that is extremely important in my technology class regarding how students learn and better understand the technology - devices, applications, interactive on-line components - they use on a daily basis. At the beginning of EVERY project that involves utilizing a program they've never used before (which I determine with an old-fashioned show of hands), and after explaining requirements and goal of the project, students are given "play time" to maneuver through programs they are unfamiliar with so they 1) can become a bit familiar with them before they begin 2) are less likely to be distracted by the shiny lights, cool effects, and interesting sounds, and 3) will not feel intimidated by the technology.<br /><br />Giving the students control/ownership over their education and what and how they learn, is paramount to their success. <br /><br />From what I can see, although I know you wished you had done this and that, you worked with the time you had to give everyone a better understanding of what you are trying to accomplish and then provided them with food-for-thought on how they could attain those goals with their own students.<br /><br />I do want to address something you said at the end of the "Find My Mistakes" section regarding hitting a nerve with simplifying, and I am going to be frank.<br /><br />In today's world of everyone's a winner, I am all for accepting that there are many ways to do something, even in math. If I want to know what 4 X 6 is equivalent to, I can simply multiply my factors (as long as I know them), I can skip count by 4, 6 times, until I get my answer (and vice-versa), I can use counters or blocks or whatever method works. However, when it comes to a topic like simplifying, what's wrong with expecting a student to present an answer in lowest terms? I feel that many students miss out on valuable skills when, in an effort to not hurt anyone's feelings or make anyone feel unintelligent compared to their peers, we are depriving our kids of something because we are allowing them to get to a certain point, tell us (and I understand this does NOT apply to all students or all teachers) it's too difficult for them or they don't want to do it, and then accepting the result of their surrender.<br /><br />Let's expect as much from them as we do from ourselves and I guarantee we will find that they appreciate the knowledge and will be better people for it.Eric Hartmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2256375873271579383.post-81690482133502817792013-06-05T10:38:35.140-07:002013-06-05T10:38:35.140-07:00Lots of great stuff going on here. Here are some ...Lots of great stuff going on here. Here are some thoughts I had:<br />• I completely understand feeling like there isn’t enough time to cover everything you have planned and having to make tough choices. The only way I have found to avoid this is to drastically narrow the scope of the presentation. However if you don’t know whether you’ll have more opportunities to work with a group of teachers, sometimes that is also a hard choice to make.<br />• Regarding what CCSS is and is not, my advice is regarding how you word them. Be careful with statements that seem like they are “always” or “never” statement. Also be careful of statements that make teachers feel judged or that everything they have been doing is bad. If you word it as NOT “Giving students only one way to understand mathematics” then it will take some of the blame off. Alternatively you could express it as expanding or building upon their teaching methods.<br />• Similarly, consider NOT “Telling students answers” versus NOT “Focusing primarily on getting correct answers”. They both provide the basis for explaining that students need to more deeply understand the material but the first one might make teachers think “Wait, the CCSS says I can never tell students the answers again?!”<br />• It was great that you made yourself vulnerable and showed the challenge you took and payoff you had. That will help teachers realize that you are willing to walk the walk.<br />• At about this point in the video I thought that you remind me so much of the way Dan carries himself.<br />• I like the way you set up the practice and content standards. You might add how the practice standards relate to the outgoing Math Reasoning standards in CA and how the Practice standards are the same for grades K through 12.<br />• Regarding the activity you did on the SMP, I think it is a great start. I have yet to see any activity where everyone did an activity and perfectly understood them all so this definitely helps. Clearly they made some progress today.<br />• Something you might add to your activity would be to ask them to point out where they demonstrated each of the SMP during the problems that they had completed.<br />• All your reflections are good. I don’t know the answer to many of them but clearly with more time it is easier to do all the things you want. Reflection is certainly the key to growing and improving.<br />Robert Kaplinskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12730219834465583755noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2256375873271579383.post-51436830500511716222013-06-04T20:03:37.325-07:002013-06-04T20:03:37.325-07:00You are so brave to post this AND to have watched ...You are so brave to post this AND to have watched it so carefully, enough to guide us and find the questions you want answered. <br /><br />The modeling of what a dynamic classroom looks like was most beneficial. I may have missed something, but I would have liked more inbetween ties to the how this is common core (similiar to your wrap up at the end). Did you ever say why they were making an INB? (I may have missed that). <br /><br />Kudos to you and a lot accomplished in a short amount of time. Contextualizing is uber important...like the woman said in the mistake section: there is obviously more than a whole there...go ahead, but a picture up on the board please...just to drive this point home! (Having in the participant's notes, a picture of a cookie say, and some more, might trigger the reminder.<br /><br />Best, AmyAmy zimmerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09960137549431994944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2256375873271579383.post-91369361061353951122013-06-02T16:22:26.234-07:002013-06-02T16:22:26.234-07:00Hi Kristin,
Thanks for stopping in and leaving so...Hi Kristin,<br /><br />Thanks for stopping in and leaving some feedback. I appreciate the kind words and am glad you found some useful parts. As for the question about needing a common denominator when adding fractions, I'm curious to know what else could be written on the board to encourage a different train of thought. I think the answer is relative to where the students are in exploring operations with fractions. Have they just begun exploring fractions? If so, then using the terminology of having a "common denominator" seems silly and inappropriate. Therefore, I would encourage students to draw a picture to support their answer. If they have already explored fractions, using pictures and other representations, and are more comfortable with the algorithm, then using "common denominator" seems appropriate in my mind. <br />Again, thanks for the constructive feedback. It will be used and applied.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06699410662148629132noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2256375873271579383.post-18053854394444046992013-06-02T16:12:54.830-07:002013-06-02T16:12:54.830-07:00Thanks for stopping in Chris. I truly appreciate y...Thanks for stopping in Chris. I truly appreciate your feedback. You are absolutely correct about revisiting the objective all the way throughout the workshop. Having teachers reflect on the two points you mentioned is something I wish I made the time for and executed. I thought about doing it during the estimation tasks, but it makes so much sense for the "Find My Mistake" portion and Math Tools activities as well.<br />Again, I appreciate you taking the time to check everything out, leaving me some detailed and constructive feedback. Please know that I will definitely use and apply it in the future.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06699410662148629132noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2256375873271579383.post-7524086069097857672013-06-02T08:58:02.847-07:002013-06-02T08:58:02.847-07:00These teachers obviously respect you, and you comm...These teachers obviously respect you, and you command the room like a natural leader. The teachers also appeared very engaged the entire session. Big props on both counts.<br /><br />You stated very clearly at the beginning that the objective of the workshop was to know "the role of the teacher under the Common Core." You also debriefed your target at the conclusion of the workshop very well. More props.<br /><br />I have used those SMP posters from Jordan District that Fawn pointed out, also. They are a very useful and popular tool.<br /><br />My suggestion would be to tie each activity of the workshop back to those posters (back to the practices). You appeared to highlight the use of tools, and demonstrated three very cool activities, but "the new role" remained the bookends of the workshop (beginning and end). It may have been helpful for the teachers to reflect on two points after each activity: 1) Which practices from the posters are evident in this activity?, 2) How does "your role as the teacher" different in facilitating those practices in this activity?<br /><br />Your objective is spot on. So I suggest that you state it up front, rephrase it at the end (as you did), and revisit it all the way through. Hope this helps.Chris Shorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17649692400490053545noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2256375873271579383.post-80776314416331048102013-06-01T16:05:13.935-07:002013-06-01T16:05:13.935-07:00Really enjoyed the video and I think we always lea...Really enjoyed the video and I think we always leave with a list of things we wished we had done differently. I especially loved that the teachers were active learners and engaged in the math. The parallel Is Not/Is showed a nice relationship b/t the teachers learning to students learning in a CCSS classroom (this part is something I will definitely embed in my next training).<br /><br />I understand the standards to be the same with respect to "simplifying." It always seems to strike a nerve with my 4th and 5th grade teachers as well.<br /><br />Overall, I think the presentation was fantastic and I will definitely take things back to use. I guess my only question, and this is just because I urge my colleagues to not say "You need a common denominator to add fractions" to the students, but you had that written on the math mistakes section of the presentation. Is there something else to put there that would encourage a different train of thought with teachers? <br /><br />Thank you so much for sharing!<br />Kristin<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com