Wednesday, December 19, 2012

New Math

     I recently read an article my principal sent out regarding Common Core and new math.  The author, who writes for Educational Leadership voiced his concern that this new approach focuses more on the why and less on just getting it done the traditional way.  I know that several parents have also expressed concern about why a child who used to be so good at math was not struggling?
     We need to think as parents and educators about the math we grew up learning.  Did we really learn and understand why we do certain operations, or why we manipulate numbers the way we do?  The answer if we are truly honest is no.  We have an operation or "trick" we can use to get the answer, but we don't conceptually understand the math involved.  Case in point recently we've been working with decimals. I have student who came from another district who knows to pull the decimal out when multiplying then just put it back in. But when I asked why we do that, he had no answer.  We have got to develop critical thinkers in math just as much as we do in reading or science. They have GOT to understand why, or they will never be truly good at math or problem solving!
    We use Investigations in our district.  It focuses on the child finding and using efficient strategies to solve a problem.  The eventual goal is then to move toward a traditional algorithm when the child fully understands the process involved in solving a problem.  We have daily Number Talks where the kids are required to use mental math to solve and explain their thinking.  We then record their thoughts and name strategies.  Here is an example of a multiplication anchor chart and some questioning we do with students.


   As you can see the kids have amazing ways of thinking and working with numbers, often times ways I would never have come up with, but it works for them.  As the year progresses we really push our students towards efficiency. Hopefully in years to come you will see your students catch the "Math Curse" and become excited once again about math.  We can no longer be a country that is satisfied with mediocre math scores, we have got to push our kids to really grasp mathmatical understanding! 


Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Perspective

    I have been away from the blog for too long now. I realize that keeping up with our classroom on Facebook, my own side business blog, plus my own personal stuff is more daunting than I first thought.  I would love to find time to get on here each day and share with you all the happenings and daily discoveries in our room, but let's be realistic-that isn't going to happen...  So I will set forth a new goal of at least twice a week.  Manageable right?! Let's hope so.  I have so many ideas to share and thoughts about my experiences as a teacher.
    This past week's tragedy has really given me pause in how I would handle a situation like that.  In all honesty upon hearing the news the first thing I wanted to do was go home and grab my own children and hug them tight.  But, my job is to provide security and peace to the 25 children I have in my own room. And truly I do think of them as my children, for at least the small amount of time I get them for each day.  And just like with my own children I get frustrated, excited, sad, and amazed by them everyday.  I took time to gain some perspective with my own children at home and those here at school. I try to think about how I want them to feel when they walk in the door and then return home. I want them to know, like those children in Conneticut knew that they were cared for and worried about and the reason why we push them so much is because we want them to grow up and be happy and successful.  Notice I did not say wealthy, because we must first focus on raising happy and successfully independent children.  The whole child.
   Today as many of my students expressed their concerns when we had our own lockdown, we talked about how we take every measure to keep them safe.  That their job right now is to do the best they can so they can grow up and be the change they want to see in the world. I want them to work toward being positive people in our society.

Erin