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Archive for October 2012

An iPad in Class, Part 3

by Suzanne Alejandre
October 14th, 2012

This weekend my son (Lee) showed us an iPad app that he’d found:

Solar Walk – 3D Solar System model
By Vito Technology Inc.

I realize that it’s science but I figure if you’re an elementary teacher you teach science and if you’re a middle or high school teacher you have colleagues who teach science!

What is SO COOL about this app is to think about how it could be used along with the “Notice/Wonder” activity. Imagine that you have a class set of iPads. You’ve downloaded this (free!) app on each of them. You hand them out to the students and just ask them: “What do you notice? What do you wonder?” and just let them wander. Judging from what happened when Lee showed my husband and me this app, we immediately got lost in it — and what was so fun was that we each got lost in a different section. How could you help but learn?

Next would be sharing — best would be if in your classroom you have a way to share what an iPad displays on a classroom display but even if that’s not something you’ve figured out, I can imagine students taking turns talking about what they found.

The planets just come to life in this app. It’s quite incredible!

Categories iPads
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PoW Teacher Packet Idea

by Suzanne Alejandre
October 4th, 2012
Baking Blackberries is a Pre-Algebra Problem of the Week that just went into “preview” in our Current Problems today. As I was preparing things (writing the Teacher Packet with CCSS Standards alignment, possible solutions, student solutions, etc. and the other resources that are linked from the “blue box”) I came across Annie’s “real-life” solution that she had included in her comments when the problem first ran in 2007. I love how she described what she really did in the kitchen to decide which pan to use! I included it as one of the solutions in the Packet, Method 2: Annie’s “Hand” Estimation.
This morning I was thinking about how teachers might use that resource. I know that I would want to have them see/read Annie’s solution. Do you share it after students have worked the problem probably using straight-forward math including formulas for area? Do you share it before?
And then it suddenly occurred to me — sometimes (particularly as you’re developing students’ problem solving habits) why not use the “Our Solutions” section of the Teacher Packet and ask them to make sense of the solution we present? Here is how I thought I would use Annie’s “Hand” Estimation:

Display the two paragraphs.

  • Ask “What do you notice?”
  • (my guess is that many students don’t have cooking experience and there could be a lot of wonderings at the same time)
  • Interesting would be to see if students could then craft a math problem out of what Annie did.
  • Interesting would be to show students the problem and have conversations about how they might do it.

Another idea instead of displaying the two paragraphs would be to say, “I’m going to read you a story.” Read the first paragraph and ask “What did you hear?” Read the second paragraph and ask “What did you hear?” And then, perhaps display the two paragraphs to do a “Noticing/Wondering” activity.

If you try this idea of using either student solutions or our solutions from the Packet, please leave a comment to tell your story. What did you notice as your worked with your students? What did you wonder?

Some “Baking Blackberries” links in case you are interested:
Categories problem solving
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Unsilence Students’ Voices

by Suzanne Alejandre
October 3rd, 2012

When I decided to write an article with the title Unsilence Students’ Voices I thought long and hard about using “Unsilence”! Every time I typed that word the text editor underlined it in red reminding me that it was not a “real” word. Was I rebelling against that red underlining? Maybe! I decided that it expressed what I wanted to communicate and so I went with it. I’ve now had the article published in the journal of the California Mathematics Council, the CMC ComMuniCator:

Unsilence Students’ Voices, September 2012, CMC ComMuniCator

I’ve presented these sessions with the title, Unsilence Students’ Voices:

November 2-3, 2012, in Palm Springs, CA
California Mathematics Council – Southern Section (CMC-South)
Suzanne Alejandre and Marie Hogan
Session 120: Friday 8:30 – 10:00
November 8-10, 2012, in Rye Brook, NY
Association of Mathematics Teachers of New York State (AMTNYS)
Suzanne Alejandre and Bushra Makiya
Session 42: Thursday 3:00 – 4:00
November 30 – December 2, 2012, in Asilomar, CA
California Mathematics Council – Northern Section (CMC-North)
Suzanne Alejandre and Marie Hogan
Session 335: Saturday 11:00 -12:00
Ignite!: Saturday 7:30 – 9:00 (link to video coming soon on Key Curriculum’s YouTube page)

As you read the ComMuniCator article and/or view the resources linked from the sessions, please comment here. How are you helping your students make their mathematical voices heard?

Categories Uncategorized
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