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Mining the MTBoS: Literacy Connections, Perseverance, and Visual Patterns

Literacy and Math

https://sites.google.com/site/literacymath/literature-strategies/-concept-of-a-definition-map

At our school, we are working to create a culture of reading. Our data shows our students’ lexile scores are lower than the average middle schooler, promoting our administration to develop a plan of action. Part of the plan is to incorporate literacy standards within every content area including mathematics. This could be a difficult task but these bloggers are on to something.

Within her Chipmunk Error Analysis post, blogger Rachel lays out how she is able to get her sixth graders to give a lot of thought into the mathematical mistakes of others. It appears within her post, Rachel purposefully creates problems showing the errors of 3 students with famous chipmunk names. Purposeful as she wants her students to consider the use of various strategies. What I love about her blog is her coverage of multiple error analysis based on concept, reminds a bit of Math Mistakes.

On Math Equals Love, there’s a means for having students analyze their own errors. With the reflection sheet posted on the blog, students identify their own errors and develop a corrected solution prior to completing a retest. Consider the evidence they must gather from the text, which is their own work. They also must support their claims of error with reasons as they develop the new solution.

Bringing technology into the error analysis action, the post from Tech Adventures in Middle School Math Class discusses the use of an iPad to help with the analysis. Through the use of an iPad, students are able to upload their error analysis, similar to how Andrew Stadel set up the activity within this post, and complete related practice activities.

Written by Jenise Sexton (@MrsJeniseSexton)

Perseverance

Perseverance is my theme this week. What we do when things don’t work out so well – which happens pretty much every day in this line of work.

My friend John Golden (@mathhombre) wrote this post about his struggles with one particular class, which include not being able to get them to talk to each other. Talk about a problem with which I, and I’m sure many of us, are familiar. John is persevering by changing things up in order to accommodate these students’ challenges, but at the same time nudge them out of their comfort zones. Scaffolded worksheets and math writing are the strategies he describes in this post. I love his assertion that he is “teaching the students in front of me, rather than some fantasy class.”

Jennifer Vadnais (@RilesBlue) persevered with a “Desmos Activity Builder that flopped”. In this post, she outlines two attempts, in two different classrooms, to teach the same lesson using a Desmos Activity. In both cases, the activity started off well, but then lost steam at about the same place. Jennifer redesigned it so that the activity was integrated with vertical white boards, in fact, she switched things around so that the Desmos activity slides played a supporting role to the VWBs. She accommodated not only her students, but the teacher who, with good reason, was keen on using these boards.

Written by Audrey McLaren (@a_mcsquared)

Feedback Around Visual Patterns

Visual Patterns have been a mainstay of the MTBoS for years now. Fawn Nguyen’s site is an excellent resource for teachers interested in using these fun, simple patterns to foster creative math thinking.

Michael Pershan recently posted an essay he wrote about the ways that students think about visual patterns, and the ways that teachers can provide feedback to help them move between various modes of thinking. Michael mentions at the outset of his introduction that this is an unfinished work, but there is still plenty of thought-provoking commentary about the strengths and weaknesses of visual patterns as a math task. If you teach with visual patterns, do yourself a favor and check out this essay.

Written by Kent Haines (@MrAKHaines)

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Great Blogging Action

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A Window Into Our Worlds

What’s Happening in Your Classroom?

One of the many things I love about #mtbos is the sharing of instructional strategies and activities happening within classrooms. In @powersfulmath’s recent post, Classroom Happenings 1/25, she shared two problem solving tasks she has used with her students. Each come from the paid subscription site Mathalicious. Through her collaboration with her colleague, Brooke provides two interactive Algebra 1 activities relating to polynomials. You can also check out activities for 7th grade math in Brooke’s post Classroom Happening 1/18.

It is my belief peering into the classroom of others helps us to grow. Quite often it isn’t convenient to go and observe what others are doing in their classrooms. This makes blogging critical to the professional growth of others. Understanding this idea prompted me to develop a blog specific to my school, Math at Grace Snell. Within it, I highlight those instructional strategies others could benefit from adopting. Equipped with images and narrative, my hope is teachers become inspired to try some of what they read.

Written by Jenise Sexton (@MrsJeniseSexton)

Explore MTBoS Blogging Initiative: Week Three

The Explore MTBoS Blogging Initiative has been a wealth of excellent writing from math teachers at all levels from elementary to college. The initiative just wrapped up its third week, which was about asking better questions. There were some excellent posts from dozens of teachers, which are easily browsed in the comments section to Explore MTBoS’s post about Week 3.

Heather Kohn provides a great, easily-implemented tip for improving questions in her Algebra classroom. She asked her students to find similarities and differences between a system of equations and a system of inequalities, but she wasn’t getting the sort of engagement or responses that she wanted.

So she made the activity into a debate. Instead of asking her kids to find differences, she asked them to find the biggest difference between the systems. Likewise, she asked the students to find the biggest similarity. Suddenly her room came alive with debate as students argued about which similarity or difference was the most significant.
It’s a simple change that maintains the integrity of the activity while providing a more compelling hook for students. And it’s just one of the many great posts happening because of the Explore MTBoS Blogging Initiative. Check it out.

Written by Kent Haines (@MrAKHaines)

Other Highlights from the Explore MTBoS Blogging Initiative

The #mtbos blogging initiative is producing some wonderful posts. Kent’s article about Heather Kohn’s better questions made me go back to find this one by Jennifer Fairbanks’ (@HHSmith) about a better question for solving quadratic equations. She gives her students 3 quadratic equations to solve, along with 3 choices of methods to use, but they can’t use the same method on more than one equation. They have to think before they squander that quadratic formula. What a great way to foster critical thinking!

The Day in the Life theme was fascinating, and inspiring, although tiring to imagine how busy these educators are on a daily basis. This one is from Mark Sanford (@hfxmark), a math teacher, whose day started at 5:30 am and ended at 10 pm. Of course, like many teachers, the actual classroom time only accounts for a  fraction of his day. Jennifer Vadnais’ post is from the perspective of an instructional coach, (@RilesBlue) whose busy day includes dashing from one school to another. Different jobs, but equally demanding, and both are awesome educators, of children and grownups.

Written by Audrey McLaren (@a_mcsquared)