MATH AQ COURSE REFLECTION

I signed up for this course in order to upgrade my knowledge and skills and increase the number of teachable courses that I have so that I may be eligible for math along with science positions.  With most PD sessions, I figure that it’s been a successful day if I can take away one thing that I can actually use in my classroom.  So, it is with great satisfaction that I have so many things that “have legs” and that I can take away and use not only in a math classroom but many “big ideas” that are applicable to any subject.

I am not one for educational “jargon” and have found it difficult to navigate the new vocabulary that I need in an interview situation and during staff meetings.  Some teachers are really good at using the terms but when asked to explain them, the answers are sometimes vague and not backed up with examples.  Ve clearly distinguished between many terms which I found extremely helpful.  For example, at the start of each class, we used to have to do an “Attention Getter” whereas now it’s a “Minds On” activity.  I now better understand that the “Minds On” should include the interest component and should be related to the topic at hand but should bridge the previous lesson with the current lesson as opposed to just presenting the students with the “wow” factor of the attention getter.  It was also enlightening to hear that the “Minds On” activity does not necessarily have to occur at the start of a class like is expected in my board.  During this class, I have also solidified my understanding of the similarities and differences between assessment as, of and for learning versus diagnostic, formative and summative.  I have been told that “we don’t use the term diagnostic” anymore but the subtleties of these terms have never been clarified to me.  Thus, this course has enabled me to build up my repertoire of current educational language that I feel comfortable and confident using because we have used the terms often in discussion and I feel that I now have a more practical understanding of all of the meanings of these terms.

This course has made me challenge my practice by reflecting on the reasons for doing some of the things that I do automatically.   Education swings like a pendulum but I think its best to take the best of both ends of the swing and amalgamate them into something that is usable.  I think that I have recently been so focused on making individual lesson plans which include all of the parts that administrators want to see (success criteria, learning goals, minds on, action, consolidation plus superimposing assessment strategies and differentiating learning….yes, all the terminology!), that I have not focused enough on what I really want the students to know, do and create by the end.  I also have a very “socratic” way of teaching, but this course has made me wonder how many closed ended questions vs. open ended questions I ask on a daily basis.  I would like to shift towards more open ended questions but I don’t think that I will completely give up those closed ones (I love Kahoot!).  The idea of parallel tasks helped me to think of different ways to differentiate instruction.  Also, I try to make my lessons interesting and have students work in groups, but our discussion of the teenage brain reminded me of the reasons why they enjoy this type of learning.  Despite trying to include all learners, I have never really thought about how to provide different and multiple entry points in a task which is something I’d like to consciously consider when designing tasks.  Also, using technological tools (eg. Desmos) to provide immediate feedback to teens is very intriguing because if I can get them glued to their devices to do math like they are when they play video games, a lot of learning can take place!   This course has given me lots of “food for thought” (and not just the snacks!).

Finally, we “learned-ish” some math….or at least, I remembered some math but learned how to present math ideas not as I remembered learning them but in a way that makes more sense to students and enables them to see connections between different concepts.  On the first day of this course, I stood in the “Happy” with math group and my reason was that I like math because it’s neat and tidy and has an answer.  Well, I have revised that idea after discussing Rich Tasks, especially the messy exploding watermelon activity.  I found these very comfortable because they reminded me a lot of the inquiry method in science and I really liked the open-ended nature of the tasks.  So often in science classrooms, the experiment is more like following a recipe to arrive at a set “answer”.  I want to bring even more rich tasks into my science classrooms as well as try some in math.   I very much enjoyed re-learning math using algebra tiles and investigating using Desmos and in ways that showed me the understanding behind the math instead of teaching me by rote.  Perhaps I learned some of the understanding behind why the square of “the hypotenuse is equal to the squares of the other two sides” but only the “formula” stuck with me over the years.  I’m not sure that I’ve reviewed all of the math that I will need to teach grade 9 & 10 math, but am more confident that I have many more tools to draw on.

During these 3 short weeks, Ve has shown us many great resources that can support student learning.  He has instilled a new way of teaching and learning math using open questions and rich tasks in which students drive their own learning and can achieve success via many different routes.  He has encouraged us to have a growth mindset (yes, I can blog!) but has kept it real by reminding us that it will take some time to implement these ideas (haven’t yet started Twitter).  The last big idea that I have taken away is that Vy really enjoys teaching students, challenging them to think, and works really hard to make learning fun!  Thank-you!