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Focus on Student Practice
http://mathforum.org/articles/communicatormarch2012.html
The Forum's Director of Professional Development has written
a journal article based on her visits to a fifth grade
classroom in Philadelphia.
"Focus on Student Practice" discusses how students worked on a
Problem of the Week (PoW) that developed what the Common Core
State Standards (CCSS) calls the Mathematical Practice of
"making sense of problems and persevering in solving them." The
free four page-long download intersperses teaching tips
throughout its four sections:
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What does it mean to have our students "make sense
of problems...?"
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How does it look?
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How does it sound?
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What does "... persevere in solving them" mean?
The article, which appears in the current issue of the CMC
ComMuniCator, concludes with related links at the Forum for
freely downloading the PoW packet and other
accompanying resources.
To watch video clips of Suzanne's visits, check out her blog:
http://mathforum.org/blogs/suzanne/suzannes-classroom-videos/
This article for the journal of the California Mathematics
Council joins several others written by Forum staff about
implementing problem solving and writing:
http://mathforum.org/pow/teacher/articles.html
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PoW taking place: math problem-solving moment of the week
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"Not all of the correct submissions that we received used the
exact same strategy I did. What I liked about the solution by
Damien S. from West Mercer Elementary was the way he explained
why the height of the crossing stays the same even when the
distance between the poles isn't 25 meters. Annemarie C. from
Rosemont School of the Holy Child thought about the problem in
a totally different way. I love it when that happens!"
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- Max, commenting on the Algebra PoW's Latest Solution
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http://mathforum.org/pows/solution.htm?publication=4044
The 101questions Blog
http://101qs.com/
This blog aims "to perplex students, to put them in a position
to wonder a question so intensely they'll commit to the hard
work of getting an answer, whether that's through modeling,
experimenting, reading, taking notes, or listening to
an explanation."
Look at an image or video with a high "perplexity" score, then
submit the first question that comes to your mind — in fewer
than 140 characters — or upload your own mathematical prompts.
With 101questions, launched this month, former high school math
teacher and current Ph.D. candidate Dan Meyer seeks to improve
on the experience of the #anyqs hashtag on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23anyqs
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Now taking place: math education conversation of the hour
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"This is helpful. And interesting! So does a more nuanced
explanation go like this? There are some mathematical and
historical reasons to believe that when n > 30, a sample mean
is becoming approximately normal. However, we still like to
graph our data, when possible, as an indication of how skewed
the population might be. And the practice of switching from t
to z at 30 (or 40) is an artifact of a lack of inadequate
technology. Now that we can easily compute t for any sample
size, there is no need act as if something magically changes
at 30. Is that more complete?"
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- Jared, posted to the ap-stat discussion group
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http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=7751789
The Mathematical Education of Teachers II
http://www.cbmsweb.org/
The Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS)
welcomes your comments and suggestions on the draft of The
Mathematical Education of Teachers II (MET2).
The preface of this draft states that MET2 "continues two
themes that may have looked revolutionary to readers of the
first MET report:
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there is intellectual substance in school mathematics
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the mathematical knowledge needed for teaching is
different from that of other professions
"Moreover, like the first MET report, this report does not
endorse two ideas that are all too common in the United
States:
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teachers learn all the mathematics that they need to know
during their preparation programs, before they
begin teaching
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K-12 education provides future elementary teachers with
the knowledge that they need for teaching mathematics to
elementary students"
Download the 36 page-long MET2 draft here:
http://www.cbmsweb.org/MET2/MET2Draft.pdf
Then comment on the six chapters at this survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CBMSMET2
Much has changed in the decade since the publication of the
original MET, including the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
Initiative, the attention given by the mathematics profession
to the mathematical education of teachers, and the engagement
of mathematicians in the work of federally-funded Math Science
Partnerships (MSPs).
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