Sues Curriculum and Instruction

I attended the Professional Day at the BCAMT meeting in Surrey.  It was a great meeting.  A couple things that were exceptional for me: 1) I was in a group with Frederic Gourdeau during one of the breakout sessions.  I didn't know who he was, but he was so smooth and beautiful with the problems we were working on.  He used such creative ways of solving a problem - not just hammering through but seeing the beauty and symmetry of the lines.  Frederic suggested that we were using the Cavalieri Principle to solve one of the problems.  Call me starstruck but I really enjoyed this group work.   I learned later the he spoke on problem solving at an earlier seminar.  I'm sorry I missed that one. 2) I also took a seminar and later met Peter  Liljedahl.  It was very interesting to participate in his seminar to experience the 'flow' firsthand.  I do wonder how/if one could use this strategy at higher levels of math.  I experience...

Two or three 'stops' you have in this article The biggest idea for me was the idea that the foundation of nearly all components of the school from the physical plant to the curriculum is really based on tradition rather than careful thought into what is really needed to develop 'holistic' adults.   Judging from Eisner's bio, before I read the article, I was expecting a long discussion on how the Arts were underserved in schools.  It was interesting to read how so many things were underserved, not just the arts. In addition, his point about the 'class' system and competition in school whereby some students get tracked to 'honors' classes and their grades count for more than a regularly tracked student.  I remember this system in my high school - students were tracked early, around 6-7th grade and then they stayed on those tracks.  I was tracked high for math and this carried with it a 'cache' that I remember I liked. Ways that this might...

In general I thought that our group did a relatively good job.  I had many takeaway's from our micro teaching but would like to point out just a few... 1) I think we had a lot of good content (definitely too much for just 15 minutes) and so we were happy with your suggestion to reduce the scope a bit.  Even after we paired it down a bit, I felt like we still had too much material.  My takeaway with this one is to really think about how much I can accomplish in a single lesson.  Especially if I add activities. 2) It would have been great if our group had had more time to coordinate the transitions and really go through the presentation - each person's role, activities, etc.   This seemed to be the area where our 'class' also seemed to think the our 'timing and pacing' were ok but not perfect. 3) More activities for the class - or better integration of activities with the presentation.   Personally, I forgot about activities until the very end as...

Here is our lesson plan for tomorrow's micro teaching.  The plan is a bit ambitious - our team is still working to consolidate it. https://docs.google.com/document/d/14_ELNbqpjlDr3S3QB8YEs5Ev5DmnBZ2Q/edit

The number diametrically opposite to 7 on a circle of 30 numbers is 22. I figured this out the old fashioned way of calculating the midpoint between 7 and 30.  I know that there are other, more creative mathematical ways of calculating this number. I'm sure there are other extended puzzles that I could give related to this one.  I could use a different shape perhaps or add a triangle into the mix in some form. We talked in class about giving students impossible puzzles.  My initial thought was that I would definitely give students impossible puzzles but after considering the comments of my classmates, I think it would depend on the mix of my class.  For a class of rather inexperienced math students (ie: grade 8 or 9), I would not give an impossible puzzle unless it was to some more of the advanced students.  Math is hard enough, I don't want to make it any more frustrating.  However, for students who have an interest, I think it would be challenging...

The article about Battleground Schools didn't give me 3 'stops' but rather just one big 'Aha, now I understand' moment!   As one of your older students, I have lived much of the change since the late 1960's.  I remember the new math, and the saying that the new math is old math, and is really a sham (I believe the word I heard back then was 'bunk'). But  I can appreciate how FEAR would have driven the push for putting more structure back into the math curriculum.  Where they (math content designers, the government?) failed, as the article discusses, is in the communication to the teachers and the parents of why this system was necessary.  Also a result of the fear, was a lack of broader thinking of what they want to achieve.  But perhaps this is your point - that the conservative and progressive ideas has been around for a while and is the heart of the issue. Another interesting component to me is the thinking about teaching fundamental math concepts...

We know that  every 2 used a dish of rice                         every 3 used a dish of broth and                        every 4 had a dish of meat between them. There were 65 dishes in all.  How many guests were there? I suspect there are many ways to solve this problem.  Here is one way: If the number of guests is x,  then  x/3 + x/4 + x/2 = 65 Multiply by 12 (common denominator) 4x + 3x + 6x = 780 x = 60 So there were 60 guests in total.

Micro teaching reflection This micro teaching exercise was very helpful for me.  When you first presented the idea for the exercise, my reaction was - no problem!  I picked a topic relatively quickly and set to work creating some slides that would help the students learn the topic.  Since the topic was quite whimsical, I saw it as a more or less fun exercise that would be entertaining.  I created the slides, ran through the presentation once and at the last minute, I saw your notes to clarify exactly how I was going to spend the 7 minutes I had allocated to the 'middle'.  I figured that out and was ready to go. Strengths: The presentation was lively.  I think I did a good job of teaching the students the words by having them written out on a powerpoint slide, and then sharing the hand gestures at the same time.  I had a cute closing video of my niece and my daughter doing the exercise and this was well received. Weaknesses: I didn't practice enou...

Per your suggestion to put specific times next to the 'middle' piece, here is my update lesson. Micro Teaching #1 – Teaching students “Double Double” Lesson Plan Beginning                                                           1 minute Hand games are games played using only your hands.  One hand game you may have heard of is called thumb wrestling. Has anyone ever heard or played hand games? I learned this game from my nieces when they were younger.  And now my nieces have taught this game to my daughters. The only things you need to play the game are your hands and your mouth, a partner and a fast thinking brain.  Middle    ...

Micro Teaching #1 – Teaching students the Hand  Game “Double Double” Lesson Plan Beginning                                                                    2 minutes Introduce the concept of hand games.    Check in on peer knowledge of the topic.   Give an overview of where I learned the game.   What do you need to play the game?   Middle                                                                  ...