I sat in on the #msmathchat last night and even tweeted a couple of times. It was very fast paced and overwhelming...I really have no idea what I'm doing...but I can see how useful this new tool could be, if I ever figure it out. :)
In the meantime I thought I would try posting something I'm trying in my classroom to get some feedback.
In my district's effort to increase student achievement, they are putting all of our eggs in the literacy basket, so to speak. District wide and school wide, teachers of all content areas are being trained to implement various reading and writing strategies. As good as these trainings are, they tend to lack math connections and the trainers are often at a loss on how to relate the strategies to math. We are generally just given the optimistic advice to "make it our own" and "do what works for you." This generally leaves our math department with the feeling that literacy strategies aren't really meant for us.
So, as a math, science, and language arts certified teacher, I am trying really hard to find variations that work for us. I do a lot of writing in my math class, but some strategies are tougher to implement than others.
For instance, we were recently trained in close and critical reading and our assignment was to use a text and have the students write about:
1. What the text says
2. How the author says it
3. What the text means
4. What the text means to me.
Our math team and the trainer were at a bit of a loss on making this worthwhile for math. The tendency is to assume all literacy strategies can be used in tandem with story problems, but that's not always terribly organic or useful. So, I put together the following idea.
The idea is to use simulated student work with an error in it as the "text." The students will use this math text for their close and critical reading.
Thoughts?
Hello and welcome! I'm so proud that you're trying Twitter out even though it is new and foreign to you. Stick with it for the week! Hopefully you'll find it useful, but no worries if you don't.
ReplyDeleteI'm having some trouble reading your document, but I wanted to let you know that there are two bloggers that I know of that are intimately related in the questions you are talking about regarding math communication:
http://cheesemonkeysf.blogspot.com/
and
http://clopendebate.wordpress.com/
(I know both in person and they are superawesome people!)
Hope the links help.
(I also sometimes write about math communication, but I am not the best at it: http://samjshah.com/tag/mathematical-communication/)
Always,
Sam
I think your idea of using literacy strategies to analyze math mistakes shows promise. I'd think that the richer the problem and mistake being analyzed, the heartier the activity of analysis will be. I'd be curious to see your rubric in action and the kinds of student work that gets generated. Do blog about it!
ReplyDeleteAnother way of having students apply critical reading skills would be to do something like what Beth Ferguson describes here:
http://algebrasfriend.blogspot.com/2013/10/math-munching-today.html
Reading an article about math that has rich content and an authorial voice could be a great addition to the literacy activities you do with your students. And if you'd like some help with using Math Munch with your students, just let me know!
Thanks for the feedback! I just saw her post on my Feedly and was impressed by her students' thoughtfulness. Math Munch is very cool, but I have a few hurdles: technology access in my school, possibility of that site being blocked (I'll have to check, but I bet it is, my district has a very strict firewall, lots of things blocked that I want to use), and the level of text difficulty for my 7th graders that are mostly ELL students. But still an idea to toy with...
DeleteWelcome to Twitter. I actually started with Twitter and through that started to read blogs. Literacy and reading in mathematics is always tricky. In college, reading across the curriculum was pushed hard and I only partially bought it. I love your spin on it by looking closely at mistakes. I took a class with Jo Boaler this summer and she stressed evaluation of mistakes and their importance in learning. My class is lacking in this often.
ReplyDeleteHello, Bethany. I'm glad to see that you enjoyed #msmathchat. It was very fast-paced this past week! I understand your frustration about trying to make math "work" with the goals set by your school. Literacy is a big issue in my school also. This year, we have to read "The Core Six:Essential Strategies for Achieving Excellence with the Common Core" by Harvey Silver, which deals primarily with the CCSS for ELA. I was discouraged at first because I didn't want to read a book that wouldn't help me. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see several good math examples in the book describing how to use top hat organizers and description organizers to teach Compare and Contrast in math class.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great that you are at least trying with Twitter. That is the way I had to start and then just kept trying new things and kept getting more and more information. My school is pretty heavy on the literacy also and we are often encouraged to students read text during class and assessments. It has been a struggle so far to find text connected to what I am teaching, but as time goes on, I'm sure we will all find more things to use and share them all on Twitter!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that I didn't stumble upon your blog sooner! Our building also has a school-wide literacy initiative, but ours focuses on a reading strategy of the month. At the monthly staff meetings a new reading (or thinking) strategy is introduced by our literacy coach via modeling a think aloud. Then, in our content area, we implement and reinforce the strategy throughout the month, all while collecting student artifacts and discussing student progress in our PLCs. The next month a new strategy is introduced and we repeat the cycle.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if these will help, but here are some recent posts I wrote on literacy in the math classroom:
November was monitoring
http://teacherleaders.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/even-math-teachers-are-teachers-of-reading/
For December it’s determining importance
http://teacherleaders.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/math-and-reading-determining-importance/
Good luck!!