One word 2017

By -

A new year is synonymous with New Years resolutions that are never followed through. This year I came across the #onewordtrend2017. Rather than a a new years resolution i would find a New Years word.

One of my words for 2017 will be resilience. 


Resilience because I believe it is one of the most important things we need to teach our students 
Resilience as the new PLD environment means navigating uncharted waters.

Jo Boaler's setting up positive norms in the maths classroom offers a kete of ideas for building belief and developing resilience in students. 

In the document these 7 key ideas are shared with supporting strategies to help set students up for a year of successful learning

1. Everyone Can Learn Math to the Highest Levels. Encourage students to believe in themselves. There is no such thing as a “math” person. Everyone can reach the highest levels they want to, with hard work. 

2. Mistakes are Valuable Mistakes grow your brain! It is good to struggle and make mistakes. 

3. Questions are Really Important Always ask questions, always answer questions. Ask yourself: why does that make sense? 

4. Math is about Creativity and Making Sense Math is a very creative subject that is, at its core, about visualising patterns and creating solution paths that others can see, discuss and critique. 

5. Math is about Connections and Communicating Math is a connected subject, and a form of communication. Represent math in different forms eg words, a picture, a graph, an equation, and link them. Colour code! 

6. Depth is much more important than Speed Top mathematicians, such as Laurent Schwartz, think slowly and deeply. 

7. Math Class is about Learning not Performing Math is a growth subject, it takes time to learn and it is all about effort.


I particularly liked one of the ideas from #2, Mistakes are OK

To illustrate that mistakes are valuable  get students to
  1. screw up a piece of paper and throw it at the board with the feeling they have when they make a mistake.  
  2. retrieve the paper and colour in all the lines. 


Tell them how these lines represent synapses firing and brain growth from making a mistake. 
Have them keep the piece of paper in their maths books or put them on the wall as a reminder  



What will your one word be ?



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seven Sites to build rich mathematical discussions

By -
We are often looking for ideas to have students work purposefully for short or longer bursts. This post has a collection of  seven sites that you and your students could work on independently, in pairs, small groups or as whole class  Would you rather ?  Would you rather began as a way for John Stevens to start his classes. It has evolved into a large collection of graded problems that ask students to choose an option and justify their choice using maths.  Visual Patterns.org A collection of over 400 patterns to begin rich discussions which can lead to a generalisation for the pattern. Collated by Fawn Nguyen , On the sidebar of her blog you will find links to others sites. Open Middle A huge collection of  problems sorted by topic and grade level. Open middle problems start and finish at the same point but offer multiple pathways through. Put together by    Nanette Johns on and Robert Kaplinsky Estimation 180 This site is curated by Andrew Stade...
Read more

RISKing Success

By -
Image
Happy hump day - of course hump day means that there is not long until our students are leaving to write their exams. With that comes plenty of practice tests. I wonder what effect the results of these tests have on students mindset and motivation especially those that continually get Not Achieved ? Stiggins (2007) suggests we should look at the effect of assessment from the students point of view. from his research he notes that: For students who are succeeding For students who are Not Achieving Assessment Results Reinforce success Reinforce failure Which makes them feel Hopeful & optimistic Useless They think I am in control I can’t do this Feedback helps me Feedback is more criticism They become more likely to Revise Quit Take initiative Avoid doing anything Keep going when the going gets hard Simply give ...
Read more

teachers learning from teachers

By -
Image
Today  Ormiston Senior College opened their doors to mathematics teachers to share how they are personalising learning utilising technology. Teachers came from Albany in the north to Onewhero is the south. I was definitely the kid with a new toy as I learned to drive a sphero. With a bit of trial and error however the sphero was off. I think the best day of school just got better. Many thanks to Ormiston Senior College, Subash and his department for hosting us - A great morning - lots of learning - and lots of ideas shared. Next stop Auckland Maths Association   AGM & Quiz Night Get a team (of 4) together  or join a team on the night Wednesday February 28th  Mt Eden Bowling Club, Epsom Ave, Epsom. Happy Hour 6-7pm AGM followed by quiz night, 
Read more