Day 2. The first session I attended was America’s Got STEM Talent. We were presented with three STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) units by three different publishers. We evaluated them according to their S, T, E, and M content and whether we would use it or not. It was helpful to have a representative from the publishing company present the units, but like everything else the quality of the presentation didn’t necessarily represent the quality of the product. In one presentation we were only shown the intro video, which took the whole presentation time (about 5 min) and we got nothing on the actual materials. The hook was great, but couldn’t judge the content. The other two were for elementary and middle school and were interesting, had good content, and were well laid out. I know this is a program that I will want to use, and I can implement either as an elective or an after school program.
Dr. Frank Wang presented an entertaining as well as informative seminar, Keys to Successful Teaching: Turning Research into Practice. He gave 5 points: 1)Provide Students with a rewarding experience, 2)Get the students actively involved, 3) Review constantly, 4) Teach in increments, 5) Test frequently and cumulatively. Dr. Wang was an apprentice under John Saxon of Saxon Publishing and managed the business after Saxon’s death. If you’re familiar with Saxon math, you can see the correlation between Wang’s philosophy of teaching and Saxon’s approach to mathematics. I adhere to Wang’s philosophy but not to how it is implemented in the Saxon text books. Dr. Wang gave recommendations for several books. I’m adding them to my Christmas reading list. I feel like the 4mat units I’ve been writing follow Wang’s 5 points fairly well. I have seen the concept of reviewing constantly modeled in my Observations through the “Bell Ringers” that start the math class. I’ll need to include that in my lesson plans when we start those.
The Rules of the Game was an interesting seminar. It was lead by a publisher consultant. The content was activities from their text books. There were three great hands-on activities for probability and geometry. Math Labs, as they were called, are great learning tools that are relatively short, but tangibly demonstrate important concepts. I don’t know how often I will be able to use them due to time constraints, so importance of concept and difficulty of the material will be two criteria I’ll use for choosing labs.
FABULOUS, was Jason Williams’ 50 Fabulous Finds for the Classroom: links, resources, FREE computer programs and resources. You can find all his treasures on his link. Scroll down the page and check out a few. OMG it’s overwhelming! My approach will have to be to look at one, and only one, link a week to implement. My first link is Rubistar, a rubric design and resource sight.
The last seminar of the day covered the new Common Core State Standards, which should be called National not State. It is a hot political teacher topic. This looks like it is the first step to National control of the educational system. When the government gives you money, it wants a say-so in what you do. The origin of this initiative is scary and NCTM’s work to have actual math teachers involved with the development gives me hope.
It’s been an amazing couple of days. I’m getting a clearer view of how I want to teach, and I’m acquiring resources for great lessons so I’m not “re-inventing the wheel.” The biggest impact this conference has had on my vision is probable the STEM and Engineering seminars. I can so see myself implementing these type of programs in our school and community and incorporating these kind of units to build context for the math.
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