Reflection 3
The main ideas for me this session were...
Mistakes can grow your brain. The need to change the
classroom culture. We should keep track of the progress students make and share
it with them. We should give specific feedback a student can use. Give a
hopeful message-you've not learned this 'YET' We should have children asking
for 'harder' work.' Challenge' is the new comfort zone. Effort is worthwhile,
enjoyable and productive. Take away from evaluating ability into opportunities
to learn. We need to keep students at the edge of their understanding. Speed is the enemy of a mistake friendly
culture. Do we have too much 'content'? What are the 'big ideas' in maths?
Reflection 4
The main ideas for me this session were…
Giving time for group discussion
Finding students with an answer and letting them convince
their group first
Keeping away from the rules
Letting students present their answers
Asking students to challenge one another
Sharing multiple paths to the same answer
Slowing down the lesson
My action is going to be to design a 'growth mindset' poster
for the class reinforcing the values of effort to be worthwhile, enjoyable and
productive. Something along the lines of "You can grow your brain when
you...make mistakes...when you don't know the answer straight away..when you
convince a friend..when you are challenged...
I like the idea of a 'low floor...high ceiling task'.
Reflection 5
I would like to try number talks with my class incorporating
some of the key 'teacher moves' as demonstrated by Cathy Humphries.
Cathy's introduction was "let's get ready to
think" alerting the students to participate.
She gave a lengthy 'wait time' after asking a question and
slowed quick students down by saying, "try to see it in a different
way."
She gave a very open invitation to share, "Is anybody
willing to share what the answer might be?"
She used a 'mistake' by one of the students to learn from
his methodology.
She asked for other solutions and didn't close the question
down.
She checked for understanding, "I think I heard you
say.."
She illustrated the student's solutions.
She gave the students time to discuss with one another.
She called on a student who hadn't participated yet.
I also see the importance of students visually representing
their thinking.
Section 3: The main ideas I took from this section include:
ReplyDelete1. Making mistakes makes your brain grow! We need to make sure from the beginning of the year that we talk to our students about this brain research as I think all first graders think it would be good to have a bigger brain. Make sure students know that it is good to make mistakes and then persevere and find a solution to their mistakes, and that mistakes are celebrated in my classroom.
2. Although we don't do timed tests in grade 1, I'd like to share the information on timed tests with the high school/middle school. So many times my son has told me that he would have done better on the exam and that the last question was actually really easy, but by the time he got to it he didn't have time to answer it. This is a really big thing. Some students get formally tested and a diagnosis of "whatever it may be" buys them more time on a test. Why do we need children to have a diagnosis to give them more time to take tests?? This makes no sense to me. The idea that working under time constraints creates stress which in turn can impede the working memory is important research which should make testing under any time constraint restricted. Speed is the enemy to deep thinking and understanding!
3. Make sure to discuss with children that when they have to really think about a problem and take some time on it, it is challenging their minds and growing their brains. If they find solving the problems given by the teacher easy, they should ask for different problems to solve so that they are challenged. However, as teachers, we can generally tell if something was too easy for a student and we need to differentiate the problems appropriately.