Snowed In

This week in Georgia has been a bit crazy. Last week I wore shorts to class but now I'm snowed in. I'm not really a fan of that. But here I am listening to podcasts and watching videos on how to benefit my future students. I started off my listening to a podcast from Literacy in Content Areas: A Podcast with Penny Little where Franki Sibberson discussed choice literacy. The main purpose of this podcast was to show ways to help kids have patience to go deeper into difficult texts. I saw this kind of like my snow day. I started thinking that maybe I didn't like them so much because I felt trapped. I know that a lot of students fell this way when faced with difficult texts. I realized that I have to deal with the fact that I can't go anywhere and not keep trying to get out. My time will come when the sun is shining and all this ice goes away. So I was thinking about my students feeling trapped with a difficult text. Most kids try to find a way around reading it and really digging deeper. What we need to do as teachers is help them when they feel trapped. We can teach them to not be afraid of nonfiction and difficult texts. I think my favorite part about this podcast was talking about research projects. I know that many schools make students research the same topic, but what this does is not allow for creativity and ownership of ideas. Penny Kittle said to see what your students' individual questions are and find what inspires them. Then they can research that topic and engage in great research. When people are interested in topics, it becomes easier to read or learn about. Now we just have to enable them.

The next thing I watched was a YouTube video called "Common Core in the Classroom: Math in Context Algebra that "Makes Sense"." Lauren Brooks shows how she uses technology and creativity to connect the math to the lives of her students. Lauren explains that math before was all about procedures and things that were outside of context, with word problems at the end of a unit. This doesn't show a student why things are important so there's really no point in learning it if there is no purpose. Most students have an "aversion towards word problems" she says. I can support this claim because before college, I did not want anything to do with word problems and they always gave me trouble because they weren't taught to me in the right way and usually had nothing to do with my life. Lauren now says that the way we do math now is...ANGRY BIRDS! Yay! This is such a fun game and can be used to teach quadratic equations in the classroom. She starts about by having a live demonstration. I think this is so great because many students have played this game and it is so cool to see it in action. She then allows her students to revise their findings and experiment with the game on their phones or iPads in the classroom. After everyone has experimented, she then asks her students, "What do you need from me?" At that point she shows them an equation of how quadratic formulas are represented and asks them to talk about how to find out the answer or how to "hit the pig." I saw this with in Dan Meyers talk before and I really think it does wonders for content literacy. Students are communicating and experimenting about math. They then look at graphs and begin to formulate expression once they understand the material. I can't wait to try something like this!

Lastly, in class, we've been working on something called "Think Aloud." I used a clip from Lauren Brooks video from above. She told her audience to read the following:

Here is my script as I began to read the text:
Me: "Okay so what do I remember from high school about Quadratic functions? I think I remember the vertical line test is a test to see if something is a function but I don't really have a definition for it."'
Me: "So what is the point of all this?"
Me: "I need to analyze (so for me this means to be able to dissect and understand and pick apart) a quadratic function. I need to be able to pick apart a quadratic function. Now it says I need to draw its graph, and eventually find its maximum or minimum value. (Ok so a maximum is the highest point of something and the minimum is the lowest point."
Me: "BUT...I still don't know what a quadratic function is."
Me: "I see a parabola on the page and it says they're usually represented in a parabola so maybe its a parabola. It also gives me the two forms so I'm going to circle those things but I still don't know what it is."
Me: "I'm going to work out the example and that makes sense but I can't picture this in normal life. Maybe I should go online and see what I can find about parabolas in everyday life....here is what I found:

Me: "Now things are starting to make sense. Its probably like an equation for an arc."

This is how I would ask questions to myself and read. I know I will be able to get better with more practice but as for now, I'm still snowed in and hoping the sun will come out soon.

~The Teach Fairy