I could
not have been any luckier this week. One
of the standards I am making a full-throttle effort in discovering and allowing
for our math classes to use more authentic, real-world activities along with
the usage of technology – this is Standard 2 which calls for designing and
developing digital age learning experiences for my math class. Fortunately, the eighth grade math department
had a STEM workshop on Monday. We were
to search for some authentic, real-world application problems where the students
are using technology and some form of a real-world application activity to
solve for some multi-stage problems through collaboration with two other team
members. Monday was my lucky day; I
definitely should have played the lottery.
In a matter of minutes, we discovered just the ideal website: www.Stemcollaborative.org . Within that this website, we found a link
called math by design. Within this
website there are multitudes of math related authentic, real-world problems
that involve the computer, the website, possibly the TIiNSpires, and/or a
scientific calculator. This particular
activity we have chosen for the students to do is designing a park using
various formulas throughout the development of their own park. I was too excited that this website just
appeared several minutes after we had started probing for ideas. This particular activity involves a group of
three students per team. The real-world
activity will definitely call for effective communication skills, working
together as a team to solve both multi step problems (some of that requiring
the students to think critically) during the entire development of each groups’
park and what their park consist of along with the measurements in square feet,
the volume of water within their pond, the amount of dirt and mulch that will
be necessary for various areas of this park.
Granted, we the teachers will have to model and guide the students
through various portions of their creation.
Although, we are asking each group to communicate among one another, try
to solve the dilemma amongst themselves, and if necessary make use of the of
the hint link that is provided within their park diagram. This particular activity takes the group
through each stage or task, and it provides the students with prompts they will
need to know and use and this particular authentic activity provides the groups
with hints on what formulas they will need if they do not know what formulas
are necessary. My intentions are to
allow the student to work on this activity until Friday. Even though it is bad timing, they will have
to come back the Monday after Thanksgiving to develop a presentation and/or
illustration sharing with the class by use of Voice Thread, digital video
recording, pictures, the website and the final development of the park and any
other technology component the students feel would add some uniqueness to their
presentation as long as the technology is approved by myself or Mrs.
McDeermond. At the end of each group’s presentations, I would like feedback via
open-ended questions that require the students to give some thought to the
positives and the negatives of this authentic activity. As I had mentioned in my first GAME Plan
post, I would like to incorporate one of these type of real-world,
technology-based activities once every six weeks. As time goes by, incorporate these type of activities
into our learning of content on a once a month basis. The collaboration among the 8th
grade math teachers has already started off on a very positive note and all
involved in our STEM collaboration assured me that they would be more than
happy to listen to my ideas, provide feedback, provide possible resources to
look into, and communicate any questionable concerns they might have. They have offered to meet with me once every
week and a half to discuss these types of authentic activities.
For the
next standard I wish to become more confident with and use on a consistent
basis is the communication between parents, me, fellow colleagues, my students,
and the community members. Once again, during this STEM training workshop among
the eighth grade math teachers, I was able to learn a good deal through this
one math teacher that is VERY technology oriented and super savvy with the
latest and greatest in technology and its effective usage in the math
classroom. He introduced me to Google
Voice (just today as a matter of fact).
Once this is set up, one can make phone calls to any parent through your
iPad and the beauty of it is that it does not show your cell phone number that
was initially used during the set-up process.
Therefore, I no longer will receive phone calls from parents at all, but
especially not late at night. I had
several occurrences last year from one parent that would NEVER answer her phone
during the day. Although, anywhere
between ten p.m. and close to two a.m., this parent would call from the number
I had called and left a message on. I
can put my mind at ease that my phone will not be disbursed through the caller
id; therefore, parents can call the number that Google Voice has set up as the
number you call from. This guy is a
master mind. I feel as if, I just need
to hang out with him in order to discover the great possibilities and
limitations to usage of technology and software as a means of staying in touch
with parents. Honestly, I have not
started to create my webpage that will be open and accessible for all parents,
students, fellow colleagues and community members to use just yet. Tonight, my intentions are to create this
Google Voice account and get it up and running.
I am hopeful that by Friday, I can have a basic teacher webpage set up
and ready for lines of communication between myself and all other pertinent
individuals involved in the community’s education of students and as an
opportunity to get a glimpse at the current events and future events that my
math class will be involved in. I do
intend on using Skype as a way to video myself talking and/or presenting
various information, ideas, suggestions, upcoming homework assignments,
upcoming quiz and tests, etc.
Please feel free to offer suggestions, ideas, constructive
criticism and the like. This is one HUGE
way we all can learn together and share information and resources.
I do look forward to reading other educator’s blogs
and their ideas.
Thank you for reading!
I was able to learn a good deal through this one math teacher that is VERY technology oriented and super savvy with the latest and greatest in technology and its effective usage in the math classroom.
ReplyDeleteCamel trekking tours Morocco
I am hopeful that by Friday, I can have a basic teacher webpage set up and ready for lines of communication between myself and all other pertinent
ReplyDeleteDesert tours Morocco
Lori,
ReplyDeleteOne of my goals, as well, is to develop more authentic problems and situations for my students to work with in the mathematics classroom through the use of digital technology. The link you provided was outstanding! I actually remember coming across it once before, I think it was in another master’s class, but not paying it enough heed back then. If I recall correctly, there are even some links on the website to some videos with professionals talking about how they use math in their careers. This would be great for students to see an actual architect, for example, talking about their everyday uses of mathematics. Thank you so much for the link!
Mark
yes, there are. One of my activities I had my students involved with was researching one particular occupation or job that calls for geometry in that particular occupation. All too often, over the years, I have heard students comment on,"why do we have to learn this; we are not going to use any of this in real life." I hope through their research they gained a clearer perspective on why we study various concepts in math and other academics.
DeleteThank you for your post! If you ever stumble across some other websites that might be beneficial for our math classes (and you happen to think about it) please do not hesitate to send to this blog or my walden email. I appreciate your reply!!
Lori,
ReplyDeleteI am very intrigued by Google Voice. It would definitely save us from those parental calls that intrude in our precious downtime. When you say it can make a call from your iPad, is it a VOIP type of thing? If so, like Skype that would be wonderful. More than anything I still encourage you to build your webpage for main communication. My reasoning is not only is it a more well-known method of communicating, but it also leaves a record that Google Voice may not. This would be good for either defending yourself to administrators should parents complain or simply allow you to keep track of what you discussed and when. Let me know how GV works out though!
David, I have not played with it yet enough to know the limitations of what it does and does not do. I do know that it shows on a caller ID as a different # than your cell and instead of us having to type out contact log info., it is stored somewhere (I do not know where yet) within the Google Voice program. I need to talk to the technology guru that is in our math department again when we return from Turkey week. Have a great Thanksgiving and I apologize for not being able to give you a solid answer to your questions. I will keep you posted. If you do not hear from me after Tuesday, November, 27th, send me an email and I'll let you know if I have been in touch with him as of yet or if I have had the time to play around with it some more.
DeleteLori,
ReplyDeleteI hardly make any phone calls, mainly due to the conversations usually turning into 20 - 30 minutes of my planning period. I e-mail a lot! In fact, I tell my parents and students that it is the easiest way to get a hold of me. I find I can quickly respond and have documentation for any future recall that I may need.
We have a school wide e-mail system which allows me to email classes all at once, or students/parents individually. I also ask for any/all e-mail addresses at the beginning of the year when I send home my welcome paper home. This allows for me to possibly have even more contacts - such as grandma, aunt, ect. Sometimes I have found that my students are now living with a different family member half way through the year and this allows me to have the contact information already.
Do you not have a phone in your room? When I do call, I always use my room phone. Because of this, the school phone number is what appears on any caller id.
Thank you for sharing the STEM Collaboration - I will need to check this out for my geometry students.
Danielle
At the beginning of the school year I had asked all parents that had attended open house for their email addresses. I have found that is the quickest way of relaying information to the parents. However, more than half did not have an email address and some that do admitted that they did not check it daily. I did email several parents and often times it is days later or even several weeks later before they reply to the email. The school district I work in is a Title one district. Most do not have working internet and if they have email, often times they must go to the library.
DeleteToo, another I have experienced is that I will call every phone # the parent has given me or that is in our school Infinite Campus portal just to discover that these are not working #s. One of the big reasons for this is that parents rent and often times move which leaves us (the school) without any updated way of getting in contact with these parents.
I have used my cell phone on many occasions to text and call parents. The texting is a quick way for me to get the word to the parent, but only a few parents use the text message option. We as a school district do often have a "time" getting in touch with parents especially those that really do neeed to be informed of things going on. I have also used the "house" phone to make phone calls. The phone call situation is very frustration and time consuming and many of us just do not know how else we can possibly get in touch with some of these parents??? Have you had a great deal of this occur with your parents? I do call their work numbers a great deal- sometimes they are at work, sometimes they are off on that particular day.
The one thing that saves me is keeping a contact log in Infinite Campus with a brief description of why I was trying to contact the parent and if the # is working or not. This can be a time-consuming task as well. One positive about the Google Voice, is that it keeps the record of your call and message for you. Therefore, instead of putting the info in the computer, it can be retrieved through the Google Voice log.
Thank you for your comments and suggestions.