Space for All Learners

In my ongoing quest to find great math resources on Twitter (not hard), I started following Steve Wyborney (@SteveWyborney). Steve is a math teacher and coach in Oregon. He has been posting high quality math activities immediately usable by elementary teachers. I will share a few of them here.

Teachers often struggle with math tasks that feel just right for some students but not others. Steve’s activities are accessible by a wide range of learners in the elementary grades. They provide access points for many but also opportunities for challenge within the realm of grade-appropriate number sense, place value understanding, and additive or multiplicative reasoning.

Provide Massive Space to Notice

Steve has created this subitizing/number patterns video that teachers can show to students, pausing at a certain spot to allow thinking and noticing. It couldn’t be much easier. He provides a printable page to give to students. Simple to try, powerful results.

The Maze Hundreds Chart

Watch Steve’s video of ideas for how to use this resource. Then you can get the interactive powerpoint slide he created and try it with students. I can’t get it to work on a Chromebook, so you probably need a computer with Powerpoint installed.

Also try The Green Light Hundreds Chart and The Animated Multiplication Table.

These are simple tools, already frequently used in elementary mathematics, but often without the kind of exploration and reflection encouraged by Steve.

If you explore Steve’s blog, I’m on a Learning Mission, you will find lots more high quality instructional strategies as well as tools that are immediately usable with students.

B Positive

B Positive is my blood type, and it has served as an important reminder about my attitude toward all things work-related (and non work-related).

I attended Dynamic Landscapes last week at Champlain College and had a wonderful time. The best presenters are those who are super enthusiastic about education and its potential. Though cynical about the way things are, wonderful speakers like Gary Stager, Thursday’s keynote, has an optimistic vision.

Gary says...

I am not surprised when kids do extraordinary things. I am surprised when adults are surprised when kids do extraordinary things.

What are kids really capable of? We need to find out.

Gary Stager is worth getting to know if you are an educator. He’s an advocate for kids working to their fullest potential with technology, and having high/low tech maker spaces in classrooms. His book is called Invent to Learn. Gary makes me want to be more radical.

At Dynamic Landscapes, I also attended a panel of educators who recently hosted the Smarter Balanced Assessment (Common Core) field test in their schools, facilitated by Peter Drescher of the Vermont Agency of Education. My district isn’t part of the field test, so it was great to hear from folks who know more. There was discussion of the nuts and bolts of the new assessment like the fact that students could take the test on a tablet but are supposed to have an external keyboard. There was talk of how to schedule the test to make it work, how to test the wireless capacity of the schools, how to prepare students and teachers.

I noticed that many of the educators who have administered the Smarter Balanced field test to students remarked that students enjoyed it. They like the tech format rather than dealing with pencil and paper, they liked the multimedia content, and the challenging questions.

A principal in the audience spoke up. I didn’t know him and didn’t catch his name. He said attitude is everything. This is a positive opportunity to learn. Let’s pull our sleeves up and make this work. There will be challenges, but we will learn a lot. Like any new thing there will be bumps in the road. His positive attitude was adopted by his staff and students.  

There is and will be lots of complaining about the Smarter Balanced assessments. Adult negativity is quickly taken up by students, and could rob them of important opportunities. As a math coach, I will model positivism.

B Positive.

Estimation Jars

Today I’m creating Estimation Jars for Math Night at John J. Flynn Elementary School. This is always a highlight at Math Night and it’s fun to watch kids at work on their estimate. I have one jar full of Rolos (there is something appealing about the gold wrapping), a smaller jar containing Skittles, and a very small jar with unpopped popcorn.

This year, I plan to accept all estimates within a reasonable range for each jar and then randomly draw a winner. That’s different than past Math Nights when the person who estimated the number closest to the actual number won the jar. I am hoping this helps promote a more correct understanding of estimation, with the goal being to produce a reasonable estimate, not to land on or closest to the exact number.

It is a good idea to have a few jars containing different sized objects so students can think about how the relative size of the objects affects the number that fit in a space. Ongoing math explorations can be done using estimation jars outside of an event like Math Night. Here is an excellent write-up and video about how classroom teachers can use estimation jars with their students, with a focus on the all-important concepts of doubling and halving.

PBS Kids Lab

New, high-quality resources for math education keep popping up.

Paula Kerger, of PBS, recently published a press release on the Huffington Post about some new things on the PBS Kids website. "...as we looked at our work with a critical eye, we realized that we needed to step up our efforts in helping kids learn math literacy. That's why this week we're launching "It All Adds Up," which aims to boost math learning at home -- and everywhere -- by providing resources for parents. With these free resources, which were developed in partnership with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) through the Department of Education's Ready To Learn Initiative, parents can use their mobile phones or computers, or do hands-on activities, to help their children learn basic math skills."

PBS Kids has found what other education researchers already knew: "...nearly 30 percent of parents have anxiety about teaching their child math. In part, this issue stems from the fact that 25 percent of parents find it hard to incorporate math into conversations and activities at home. Math may seem harder to weave into natural discussions and activities in the home, leaving time- and resource-strapped parents unsure where to begin."

I visited the new PBIS Kids Lab and was impressed. There are resources there for parents and teachers. I liked Math Activity of the Day and the context-specific Ideas to Go. There are tons of online activities and mobile apps. I tried a bunch, and one I would recommend is Freddy’s Carnival Games (Ages 6-8, counting). I think it is best to test these first and give specific ones to kids, rather than turning them loose with the entire menu of options.