October 2018
By now, many of you have held parent-teacher conferences and have discussed student progress.
Some questions:
- How well are your students mastering the standards?
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How do you know they are/aren’t mastering the standards?
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How do students know?
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How do students’ parents know?
Although sometimes scary, asking for feedback from students on your teaching, the activities in class, and the classroom climate can be valuable and eye-opening. Here is a sample student reflection to help you capture your students’ thoughts.
Here is a way to keep track of each student’s progress through classroom observations.
Don’t forget to set aside time for goal setting! Although it may seem like “one more thing”, goal setting helps students find meaning in the work that they are completing. Here is a sample goal-setting document. Make sure that student goals are “SMART”: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.
The Oklahoma State Department of Education’s Office of Curriculum and Instruction is excited to announce free professional development workshops for the 2018-19 school year. These workshops are being offered in different regions of the state and are designed to support educators with effective instructional strategies aligned to the Oklahoma Academic Standards. These workshops are perfect for educators looking to identify a new Professional Learning (PL) Focus or deepen expertise in an existing PL Focus.
We are kicking off our math regional meetings in Broken Arrow and OKC! We have two confirmed dates (so far): October 30 in Broken Arrow and December 4 in Oklahoma City. We will have two options for mathematics, elementary and secondary. Each is an all-day session: In the morning, attendees will interpret the OK Math Standards and analyze the learning progression in elementary or secondary grade levels. In the afternoon, attendees will define levels of Depth of Knowledge and create assessments using DOK Levels 2 & 3.
To register and view upcoming workshops, please go to https://sde.ok.gov/2018-2019-professional-learning-workshops. To accommodate more regions of the state, OSDE will offer additional workshops in January and February. Please continue to check the website for new workshops.
 How often do you hear the following?
“I don’t understand this new math my child keeps bringing home.”
“When I was in math class, we just had to show our work and solve the problem. I hated showing my work.”
“I was always so bad at math.”
“I told my child I have no clue what he/she is working on.”
The truth is, math has changed, but not in the ways parents always notice. The focus on math is built around problem solving and understanding of a concept rather than simply finding an answer. This article by Dr. Wendy Ward Hoffer helps parents understand what this “new math” is really all about and how they can help their children.
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Have your students engage in rigorous, purposeful problem-solving daily (Pre-K should engage weekly) for at least 15 minutes in their math classrooms. Math classroom environments are designed to support and encourage analyzing real-life problem situations, planning, using strategies, creating and using representations, solving, explaining processes used, and justifying and evaluating solutions for reasonableness.
Math Graphic Organizer The ultimate purpose of the graphic organizer is to provide students with a visual map that they can recall and use as they encounter rigorous problems. The completed graphic organizers are not designed to be the end-means of this process. The higher-level thinking that the organizer helps to guide is the desired outcome.
Ideas on how to use the graphic organizer. PK-K classrooms might want to have floor-sized problem solving graphic organizers, so students may gather around the mat to work out the problems, acting them out and/or representing with manipulatives and pictorial representations. The mats can be made out of a wipe-off material, so the teacher can record the students' thinking. First and Second Grade classrooms have poster-sized wipe-off mats serving the same purpose. Third and Fourth grade classrooms might want to laminate the graphic organizer to cut down on copies. Link to Graphic Organizer
Have you signed up for the Global Math Project?
Christine created a group for Oklahoma educators. If you'd like to join, click here!
This week’s puzzler problems come from www.themathcircle.org. Remember to email your process and final decisions to Christine, so she can share in future newsletters and/or in our #OKMath Facebook groups!
A farmer grows bananas in a desert oasis. He has 3000 bananas and market is 1000 miles away. He has only a camel to transport bananas, but there are two problems:
- The camel can only carry at most 1000 bananas at a time
- The camel will only walk if munching on a banana. He eats one banana for every mile he walks.
What is the maximum number of bananas the farmer can get to market using ONLY the camel to transport them?
Hint: The farmer may carry bananas part-way, drop off a supply of bananas, walk back to start (make sure the camel still has enough bananas to do this!), re-boost his supply, and so on. Is it possible to get OVER 500 bananas to market?
Arrange the numbers 1 through 15, in some order, so that:
- adjacent numbers in the sequence sum to an odd number.
- adjacent numbers in the sequence sum to an even number.
- three consecutive numbers in the sequence sum to an odd number.
- three consecutive numbers in the sequence sum to an even number.
- adjacent numbers in the sequence sum to a multiple of three.
- three consecutive numbers in the sequence sum to a multiple of three.
- adjacent numbers in the sequence sum to a perfect square.
HALLOWEEN THEME
Elementary
Here is a cool glyph activity for Pre-K and Kindergarten students. Glyphs capture data about students in a visual mode. Students should analyze the class data by creating tally charts, Venn diagrams, bar graphs, etc. and writing about what they learned from looking at the glyphs of their classmates. Try this Scarecrow Glyph.
Teach a lesson in shapes and geometry while making this friendly bat.
Calculating Candy Cost- Learning how to add and subtract decimals is fun when candy is involved! Bring in some Halloween candy ads for a comparison shop of the best candy prices in town.
Secondary
Some of my student's favorite projects combined creating artwork and applying mathematics concepts. One project that I always loved was called “Math Monsters”. This link will take you to the Google Doc. Although this features multiple standards (from 6th-Algebra I), you can add or subtract what you need to fit your students’ and standard needs.
SREB is developing an updated statistics unit for the College Career Math Ready course and would like to identify a few schools to class-test the unit later this fall.
If you are at a school teaching the College Career Ready Math course in a block schedule this fall and would be willing to class-test the updated unit, please email John Squires at SREB or Christine Koerner. Thanks!
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