Fall 2014 Reflections Part Four: Math

Here are two posts from this school year regarding changes in my math teaching. I will continue to reflect on what is working and not working with math this school year.

Math Facts Mastery

Excerpt from post 10/23/14

Thanks to Laura Candler's Math Facts Program, all my students know their multiplication facts. The goal was for all to know them by our Halloween celebration on the 31st, but they just finished today, October 23rd! What have they done? They have all successfully completed 30 second quizzes for facts 0-12. 

This was accomplished by using the materials that Laura Candler provides in her math facts unit and setting aside 15 minutes every day for kids to study. They also took the 30 second quiz for the fact they were on, every day. Students helped each other and worked together towards this class goal. On the way back from lunch students would ask, "Are we doing facts practice?" It became a real bonding experience for them; a great way to show that Together Everyone Achieves More.

Differentiation and Flipping

Entire post from 12/10/14

This year, for the first time, my team decided to reframe homework to make it more purposeful. Many aspects have been going well. Due to circumstances beyond our control, however, we are having to give math homework every night, Monday-Thursday. To make it the most purposeful learning experience for our students, we will differentiate the homework and also some nights it will be a flipped lesson, watching a video at home to prepare for the next day's lesson.

I am researching the best screencast options and put out a question about it on Twitter to see which one people like the most. One of my teammates likes Screencast- o -matic. 

We use the Singapore Math/ Math in Focus program. It includes reteach, practice and enrich resources, so I will use that to differentiate when I do send something home. I will not send the same page home for everyone. 

Also, our team discussed that 20 minutes is a reasonable amount of time considering we do not want to cut into their reading time and time to work on their self-directed learning projects. Not to mention, studying for any check-ins/quizzes/and tests that may be coming up. We will make it clear to the students that they should not work beyond twenty minutes, especially if they are struggling with the work. Sometimes, homework will be to look over the day's class work to become more familiar with the steps, etc.Differentiating will hopefully avoid some of the homework with tears. I hope to share and reflect more on this topic in this blog.