Keep Student Minds Churning To Deepen Their Learning

This week as I continue my path in math, opened my eyes to a variety of concepts that I see valuable as teacher. The main theme of the week that I noticed from class, during the webinar, textbook readings, and online modules was to challenge our students to allow them to think deeply and deepen their learning.

We can promote a growth mindset by differentiating the content, process, and product of a task which parallel tasks allows us to do. The content is the task they are given to do. Parallel tasks basically consists of giving the students choice by providing them 2 or more options in how they can solve a problem. The different questions provided to the students ask the basic same idea but are different ways to actually solve them. I love this idea as it gives students choice - and students love choice! It allows them to choose the problem that they feel comfortable solving or gives them the opportunity to challenge themselves and deepen their learning. There are a number of ways the students can solve these problems representing their process. Lastly, there can be more than one product of these tasks which challenges students to find more than one solution if they can.

Math Class (2017, Sept 18).
Creating Common and Scaffolding Questions [Personal Image].

In addition, these tasks can be consolidated by proposing scaffolding questions to the students. It challenges the students to think about their math process or other possible solutions and gain a greater understanding of the concept. In class we were given the task to create both common questions that a student may ask about our problem we chose in addition to scaffolding questions to allow students to reflect on the mathematical components of solving the problem. This is a great reflection piece for students to reflect on their learning and the math concept.

I was pleased to participate during our first webinar this week as I learned about Math Inquiry from Teresa. She explained many valuable points about why this is important to include in the classroom and how it can be orchestrated. Allowing students to wonder helps deepen their learning as they think beyond what is being taught to them gaining an interest and curiosity. One point that stood out to me is that students need to have a general understanding of what is being taught first before being open to question and analyze concepts. This makes sense as once they have an understanding of something, they may be more curious or be able to think more deeply about that concept.

Our online modules also followed this trend of deepening student learning through various ways. It is important for teachers to understand how valuable mistakes are. Creating challenging and open ended questions make mistakes more probable from our students. Therefore, through this process, they will learn to overcome these challenges and apply different strategies to solve the problems. As a result, students will learn more from this process. Another important concept from the module is to allow students time to complete their work. It is shown that those who are slower at doing math are not necessary bad at it. In fact, those who are slow may just need time to make connections and apply their understanding to solve problems. Thus, even though a challenge can be frustrating, our students will learn more from resolving their mistakes through critical thinking.


via GIPHY

Think "I Can"

As I continue on my path this week, there was a large focus on creating a growth mindset for students. A growth mindset is believing you can do something and not giving up on yourself. As teachers, it is our role to help set the stage for our students to have this mindset. 

In class this week, we learned about Math Daily 3 which is a framework that includes three different components to a lesson. It was not till after the class until it hit me.. this helps forms a growth mindset! The three components include starting a lesson with (1) Math by Myself, followed by (2) Math with Someone, and (3) Math Writing. So in short, a lesson starts by an individual review of past concepts where it may make them feel confident in their abilities. After reviewing on their own, students then move to doing an activity in partners where they will be learning a new concept and can use each other to push themselves and learn from mistakes. Lastly, the students complete a question by writing about their understanding of solving similar questions to express their understanding. This lesson framework is a great model to work from as it allows students to be independent but also using student centred learning. By starting with something that the students are familiar with, it helps them gain confidence before they gradually learn a new concept so that they believe in themselves with an "I can" attitude. 

After completing the online modules this week, there was a common theme of teachers playing a key role in how students think and apply themselves. As teachers, we need to speak wisely to our students. Praise should be given to a student who demonstrates working hard so that they continue to challenge themselves and learn from their mistakes. Telling students that they are "smart" praises them for the wrong reason. There was a video that showed students being praised for hard work wanting to work on a challenging question whereas those praised for being smart chose to work on the easy problem. Those being praised for being smart may feel pressured to continue to get the right answer. They then may avoid challenging themselves so they take an easy route where they have a smaller chance of making a mistake and can get to the right answer quickly. Therefore, it is our role as teachers to show to our students that we believe in them and tell them we are confident in their abilities so they can be confident in themselves. If we show them that we are confident in them and appreciate their hard work, they will continue to push themselves during their learning process. 

Therefore, it has come to attention how much of an impact teachers have on how students perform. Using our words wisely to encourage our students and creating an environment to promote a growth mindset by welcoming mistakes will help our students grow and continue on an upward path to learning. A story that came to my mind as I reflected on this week was The Little Engine That Could. When faced with a challenging obstacle, the train believed and told herself the classic line, “I think I can, I think I can” resulting in her getting over the hill. This is a great example of perseverance and having a growth mindset to overcome challenges and trying hard to achieve their goal. 

Back on Track

Hello and welcome to my blog! Here I invite you to join me as I continue to document my path in math where I have taken a short break but looking forward to get back on track to learning the new effective ways of teaching math.

Coming into teachers college last year, I was very nervous to teach math as I thought it could be tricky to teach and I am not too confident in my own knowledge. However, last year taught me numerous ways to create an engaging math class through the use of manipulatives, hands-on activities, and student centred learning which sparked my creativity side. After learning this, I was excited to try this new approach in my placement for my Grade 6 class. Luckily, I was able to implement a lot of these new teaching strategies where it allowed me to be creative. I absolutely loved teaching this subject (something I never thought I would say) and I received a great amount of positive feedback from the students where they never thought math could be so much fun. This moment made me realize how important it is to create that enjoyable and engaging environment as it has a large impact on how it motivates them to learn helping them grasp new concepts. This year, I look forward to learning even more strategies to use that help contribute to create an engaging class where my students will enjoy math.

As one week has gone by, I have already learned a lot, but with the mentality that comes with learning math. Growing up, math was always portrayed as being boring as I recall doing worksheet after worksheet. This made it hard for me to stay focused and motivated. An important idea that was made clear to me during our Math Mindset Modules is having that “I can” attitude that comes with having a growth mindset. The video states that anyone can learn math and mistakes and challenges is where we learn the most. I believe this is important for students to know so they do not give up on a concept or themselves during a challenging time and should know they can do something and succeed. How you mentally think affects your abilities to accomplish something so this video explains that if anyone has the ability to learn math when they put their mind to it and actually believe they can. Therefore, we as teachers should create that environment where we stress to our students that anyone is capable of learning math and welcome mistakes. If we do these things, students will be more willing to make mistakes and learn from them helping their brains grow. As Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus always says, “take chances, make mistakes, get messy” holds true to this statement as she encourages students to not shy away from trying something new and that it is ok to make mistakes.

I cannot wait to continue my path in math where I will “take chances, make mistakes, get messy” in order to learn and improve my teaching methods to make them even more effective in the future.