Math and ELL

I am teaching measurements to third graders. You know, the typical three feet to a yard, twelve inches to a foot and the unit capacity, pints, quarts, gallons. For many, they grew up hearing these terms when looking for living space, travelling, cooking, or measuring for everyday living. I had the opportunity to see the confusion with ELL students. Think about it - three feet to a yard. Just imagine, someone telling you that three of your feet equals your front yard - what?!?! My feet, whose feet? My yard, the school yard? Oh my! During the time I allowed for math games, I took aside the ELL students and visually demonstrated twelve inches by using a ruler while explaining this is another definition of foot/feet. We then worked with yardsticks to "see" how these three feet or rulers equals one of these sticks. I was patient, I allowed the long silences for them to process this. We used large pieces of poster paper to "calculate" how 27 feet equals nine yards. Quietly, we all looked at our drawings and then the aha moment came, more like a "Ooohhhh!" The rest of the lesson finished quickly. What a rush!

Grades

I've been thinking about how every single piece of work we do, gets turned in, and gets some kind of grade like 8 out of 8... or for half the class its usually something like 4 out of 8. When you consistently get 50%, what is motivating about that? Additionally, what about the fact that a part of truly learning something, is making mistakes and then figuring out how to fix them?

I'm not sure, that by putting some kind of number on all their work, the students fundamentally have any clue that making mistakes is a part of the processes of learning. Because we are required to give grades at the end of trimester, the teacher needs to keep some kind of running record of progress, but I don't know that the student needs to be reminded over and over again of their mistakes in the way that grades make the reminder. Grades don't encourage careful reconsideration as a clue to what is right, for me personally, a bad grade makes me want to forget the whole experience as quickly as possible. Which consequently, makes me dread the subject when it comes back up. If it isn't a "summative test", somebody please tell me what the point is?

-hux

did I find my answer? I came closer!

So, I was in a meeting with our literacy coach today, learning more in-depth about the reading workshop methods and how incredibly awesome Lucy Calkins is... woa, where would we be without her in the educational circuit?! So I asked an off topic question, which probably drove the Coach crazy (she is just slightly intense for any of you who have yet to do any one-on-one work with her), but I asked her why we don't teach math like we teach reading... her answer was that there is something out there called "math congress" that takes a similar approach... first of all, she better move quickly seeing as they are one the verge of buying new curriculum, second of all, anyone of heard of this?

-hux

Piaget in the Classroom?

So I went to this Educators Workshop a few weeks ago, and the school that put it on has a math curriculum based on Piaget called D.A.P. -Developmentally Appropriate ... something (can't remember the P). Anyways, one of the questions I had for the presenters is whether or not the students ever hit that frustration level with math that causes students to completely shut down (they said no!). I see this over and over in math with my third graders, I have about 10 students just hangin' on by a thread, barely comprehending what is going on... and I often think back to what we learned in literacy about how you want the students reading at an independent level, and receiving instruction at an "instructional" level. Well, in regards to math, these students are well beyond the instructional level, and deep into the frustrational. Why is this allowed to happen in math, but not literacy? Why do we just keep moving the train forward without addressing the fires along the way? Why do we allow huge gaps in mathematical comprehension? Won't those gaps continue to grow as they get older?

I think this needs to be addressed, but I'm not sure how, when districts approach math curriculum with a one size fits all mentality. I'd love to teach math in small groups, rather than whole class, but how could you structure this? And how do you avoid creating groups that will ultimately be labeled, advanced, dumb, dumber, and dumbest?

-Hux

Chasing Wisdom

How can we apply these ideas to where we are at today?