Category: reflection

Creating PBL 3.0

I have been on my project-based learning journey for a while now. This blog has served as the main receptacle for my inspirations, ideas, successes, failures, and reflections. It is now time to document my next step: wide scale revision.

This post will be divided into two main sections:

A look back at the posts that brought me to this point. (Reading them may provide some context, but not reading them will provide you with more free time…your call)
A look ahead into my revisions and their rationale. I will describe the new administrative and assessment framework around the projects and provide links to the first completed framework online.

reflection

Monty in Math Ed

Before you continue reading, This is not a post about the Monty Hall problem. Not because I don’t love the problem, it just isn’t. That ship has sailed

This post was born from a conversation I had with a teaching friend after a games night. Along the way, we were reminiscing some past experiences and he mentioned the famous clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Sir Bedevere handles a crowd’s plea to burn a woman suspected of witchcraft. When I got home that evening, I searched the clip and watched it for the first time in years. My lens has obviously changed, because I found myself not interested solely in the logic and hilarity of the piece, but on Sir Bedevere’s teaching methods. As you refresh your memory below, I want you to do so with your “educator lens”. Does Sir Bedevere run an effective lesson?

reflection

10,000 Hours

My leisure time is often interrupted by educational thoughts. I am often sent scrambling to find a piece of paper after I have accidentally encountered a mathematical situation that I feel would fit great in to the classroom. Last night an episode of Modern Family piqued an interest I have had for months.

In the show, a father is desperately looking for a skill that he can say his son excels at. He creates a list of candidates, but settles on baseball as the most likely avenue for this success. As he and his boy are heading out for their first game, he explains the “10,000 hour rule” to his wife. This concept, pioneered by Malcolm Gladwell in his best seller Outliers: The Story of Success, is based on the idea that mastery is a result of repeated exposure to the feat that you are trying to master. In his estimates, he concludes that at least 10,000 hours are necessary to achieve the stage of “mastery”.

area reflection

Staffroom Maths

I don’t mind the staffroom. I share a prep period with my math department head, and we often engage in meaningful conversation about the ongoing struggle of curriculum renewal. It is an unbelievable support to have a leader who is so willing to learn about what the reform approach has to offer. Teachers do not spend near enough time learning–which is an ironic shame.

One morning, I walked into the staffroom and he greeted me with a question:

“What’s new in math education today?”

assessment reflection

A Reflection

In the waning moments of my semester, I made the decision to create a “class expert” system to introduce the idea of rational expressions. Designed as an elongated jigsaw, the students were divided into groups and assigned a topic. The connected nature of the ideas made this, in my opinion, the optimal time to attempt this type of framework. The full rationale for the project can be found in the post entitled, “Math Class Experts“.

classroom structure reflection

Math Class Experts

Last night I was preparing my list of things to do. This has become a typical Saturday night activity for myself. Almost every week, I am commissioned with the task of preparing a new unit for one of my classes. I am a new teacher working with new curriculum. These two realities, coupled with my desire to keep my classes fresh, force me to steadily plan and reflect on past preparations. As I sat down to prepare a pre-calculus unit on rational expressions, I quickly became bored. The weekly drone of preparing a unit plan got me thinking:

If I thought this was boring, what would my students think?

Khan Academy reflection technology

Khan’s Place in Math Education

Post author By natbanting
Post date November 5, 2011
1 Comment on Khan’s Place in Math Education

It seems that every educational blogger has voiced an opinion on the growing popularity of the Khan Academy. I am actually quite surprised that Musing Mathematically has largely avoided the topic during its meager 5 month existence. The movement of online lecture snippets has polarized those in the educational community; some teachers detest that Khan claims that sitting in front of his computer can even be close to “education” while others realize the efficiency of his method and subscribe wholeheartedly. I have been sitting passively over the last few months reading developments and arguments, and yesterday evening found an article that solidified my opinion of Khan. As an educator, I applaud his vision and initiative, but I feel like he is overestimating his project’s niche of influence.

classroom structure PBL reflection

Proper Workspace for Workplace

Post author By natbanting
Post date October 8, 2011
7 Comments on Proper Workspace for Workplace

My province is in the midst of a major overhaul on its curriculum. This puts me in a very interesting situation. I am a new teacher in a large division filled with veteran teachers that all feel as overwhelmed as myself. I can’t decide if this is a curse or a blessing; I simply continue to roll with all the punches that curriculum renewal brings. On top of the nuts-and-bolts of each new course (5 of which I teach for the first time this year), the division heaps on division, school, department, and personal learning priorities. To make matters even more confusing, each initiative comes with about 35 acronyms. I can’t tell the difference between AFL, PLO, PLP, PPP, SLI, PBL… you get my drift. Amidst the chaos of red tape, I believe I have found something to hang my hat on.

factors polynomial reflection

All Factors Considered

I have only been teaching for 2 years, but am already beginning to encounter the recursive nature of the profession. I have had several repeat classes in my 4 semesters of teaching, and they require the achievement of the same outcomes. This does not bother me, in general, because I am excited to see the improvement in my teaching. There is one unit, however, that has already frustrated me. Its ability to sabotage creative exploits is unrivalled throughout the mathematics curriculum; I am speaking of the unit on polynomial factoring.

reflection statistics

The Blue Jays Defense

Baseball is mathematically based. It is the best link between the generally nerdy domain of mathematics and generally manly domain of professional sports. The one downside to this statistically driven machine is that the stats can be selected and used to benefit almost any argument proposed. Major League Baseball keeps such extensive records of stats, that there is always an obscure one in support of your argument. Right now the league is in an uproar over the Toronto Blue Jays sign stealing controversy. Some anonymous players claimed that the Jays were stealing signs with a 3rd party and that effected the amount of home runs they hit at home. In an article by ESPN, they use the personal witnesses’ accounts to bring up the topic, but claim that: