Why am I looking in from outside a glass tank? Well, not exactly a tank, but it sure felt that way. I once had a classroom with so many windows that I felt like people were always observing me during class from the outside of the room. For some reason, that's the image I have set in my head as a classroom. When I think classroom, that's what comes to mind. So as MTH 229 begins and I dive into thoughts and ideas on teaching methods and approaches, I have resolved to process my thoughts observing from outside the glass tank in writing. Here we go!
Coming into Math 229, I didn't know much of what to expect. "Mathematical Activities for Secondary Teachers," it was called. That could really mean anything within the realm of high school teaching. From day 1 of the class, it was evident that this was no traditional math class. We began by circling around the classroom, and doing a counting activity. Yeah, one that they might do in a 3rd grade classroom...but we were a classroom full of college students. A profound concept came from such a simple activity though: as we dissected the different ways students were calculating what the, say, 12th number in the sequence would be, there were at least 4 or 5 different ways of getting that 12th number that we came up with. A takeaway from this activity: sometimes we don't understand the purpose until we've accomplished the task. Even more importantly, the concept of the multiple method approach began to take root in my mind. Throughout these first 3 days of class, the central message I have taken away and understood more deeply each time has been encouraging multiple correct ways to approach a problem and celebrating the diversity of problem solving skills. My understanding of how mathematics works has already been challenged, and I'm forced to think about the question Dan Meyer proposes and answers: Does math class need a makeover?
After watching Dan passionately attest to why he believes mathematics is being taught poorly in some situations, I realize how much I agree with him. He states five symptoms that math is being taught wrongly, which you can see in his TED talk above, but I will focus on one that I've seen very presently and agree strongly with. When math is being taught poorly, there is a clear lack of retention. Almost every time I take a math class that references something I learned more than a year in the past, I have to, to an extent, re-learn the ideas. Then I think about how different my past classes have approached teaching to how I am learning in this class. None of those classes focused on how I got to the answer, but rather that I got the answer. Already I see myself analyzing math problems differently when I look at the method. In agreement with Dan, encouraging student intuition, letting them build the problem, and allowing them to explore different methods of solving are clearly most effective of the methods of teaching.
Whew. Those we're some thoughts. To close out this post, I'd love to talk about some of the specifics from Math 229 so far. As we explore resources for teachers, Desmos (https://www.desmos.com/) has been a very intriguing program. A free calculator online, with seemingly endless possibilities. Any teacher who loves exploring new ways to use technology would feel like a kid in a candy store discovering this program. With all sorts of graphing methods and animations available, it can be used basically as a free online graphing calculator. That alone is fantastic, but the way teachers can use it is even better. You can create groups where you propose a question and actually get to see how students are approaching answering that question as their graphs and attempts pop up on your screen. Once again, that theme of encouraging students to approach problem solving in different ways returns. Finally, let's take a look at some of the topics of conversation revolving around quadratic functions from day 3 of MTH 229. I'd be surprised if you didn't know about the controversy surrounding the infamous Common Core (CC) Standards. During class, we took some time to delve into these standards and understand a little more about what the CC is, taking the example of the standards for quadratic functions. A conclusion I have come to is that the standards on the Common Core website (http://www.corestandards.org/) seem fair, but also seem very unclear. I understand why people are initially scared of them. For example, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSF.LE.A.2 is written as "Construct linear and exponential functions, including arithmetic and geometric sequences, given a graph, a description of a relationship, or two input-output pairs (include reading these from a table)" (See http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/HSF/LE/). Initially this does seem a little unclear, but as I translated it more simply to "I can construct linear and exponential functions given various parts of the problem," it seems a little more straightforward. That of course is just one example. I will form more of an opinion as I learn more about the Common Core Standards, but with just some basic knowledge of the quadratic function standards for example, they don't seem too bad. Don't quote me on that quite yet, though, I haven't yet tried all the approaches of understanding their use and purpose yet... Thanks for reading, and be ready for more thoughts as I continue to learn about what teaching looks like from outside the glass tank.
4 Comments
9/11/2016 04:29:13 pm
Intriguing first post!
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Kelsey York
9/13/2016 01:59:19 pm
Tanner, I thought this was great to read! I definitely agree with a lot of your thoughts and I thought using the "outside the glass tank" idea was a cool concept. It was easy to read, and definitely clear on what your thoughts are/how you've used the things we've been talking about in class.
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Corey Smykowski
9/13/2016 06:24:07 pm
Wow! I'm very impressed by this post, this was definitely above and beyond in my opinion, nice job! Anyway, I also did not know what to expect coming into the class and I too was surprised right away when we got in the circle and started counting off by 12. It was very cool how we thought of the 4 or 5 different ways to get such a simple solution. Referring to the paragraph on the TED talk, I also have that problem in a lot of my math classes! If we are being taught something new, it takes about 2 or 3 class periods for me to get caught up on the background information that needs to be known. All-in-all, great post and way to touch base on all of the subjects discussed.
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Derek Postma
9/13/2016 07:52:22 pm
I agree so much on the counting by 12 game we played. It was amazing how many different ways people went about solving the same problem. With the TED talk, i agree with what you said about being taught something new. Sometimes I feel like we learn stuff so quick I never have time to udnerstand why we are solving it like this.
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