Annie at the Math Forum

NCTM Regional Meeting, Atlantic City, NJ, October 2012

Annie Fetter, The Math Forum @ Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
Debbie Wile, Wallingford Elementary School, Wallingford, PA

This talk is part of the Technology Learn <–> Reflect Strand

Session 68 Handout [pdf]

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Introductions

How This All Started – Formative Assessment

• Constructing Quadrilaterals Activity (see handout)
• Making Movies Using Jing – Instructions [PDF]
• Kathy’s Movie
• Danielle’s Movie

Where it Went from There – Summative Assessment

• Red Shirt’s Movie
• Christina’s Rubric (see handout)

Then Debbie Got Involved

• Student Self-Evaluation
• Think Aloud
• Formative Assessment
• Summative Assessment, Group Work

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Annie is the Problem of the Week Coordinator and Professional Development Specialist at the Math Forum.  She also teaches two courses in Drexel’s Math Learning and Teaching Masters program, Teaching Mathematics with Sketchpad and Learning and Teaching Calculus with Sketchpad.

Debbie is the gifted teacher at Wallingford Elementary.  She teaches math to students in grades 1-5.

We’ve started releasing free “scenarios”, taken from our Problems of the Week library.  This week’s installment honors Veteran’s Day by featuring a member of the Math Forum’s extended family, then-Specialist Lee Alejandre, who was on leave from the Army.

Lee’s Lawn Chair Scenario

We provide scenarios with all the problems we use as Current Problems of the Week, and are adding them to more and more problems in our library.  Basically, a scenario is a situation without a question, designed to give students an opportunity to see how much math they can come up with.  For more information about this idea, you might check out How to Start Problem Solving in Your Classroom.

We often use these scenarios with our Noticing and Wondering activity.  You can read more about that as part of our Understand the Problem strategy.

What sorts of things do you think your kids would notice and wonder around this scenario?  What might you hope they would come up with?

Every once in a while, situations come up that make me think that it would be interesting to figure out what math someone else did to come up with a particular statement. I plan to share them here as they come up.  Maybe some of you would like to pass these on to your students and see what they do with them.  If you do, post a comment back here!

Today’s theme is candy corn.  On the back of the Brach’s Candy Corn bag is this “fun fact”:

Each year Americans consume enough Brach*s Candy Corn that if laid end-to-end, would circle the earth 4.25 times….WOW!

So what’s up with that?