Letter to Parents - Blended Learning

May 1, 2014

Mr. Chris Graham

Program Leader, Mathematics

Lockerby Composite School

1391 Ramsey View Court

Sudbury, ON

P3E 5T4

Dear Parents/Guardians,

The purpose of this letter is to inform you that as part of my instructional strategies this year, I am planning to teach parts of my class in a blended format. Below you will find a brief description so that you will have an understanding of what my blended instruction will look like. Keep in mind that the blended format is something that many schools already have in place, and it is becoming the standard for what students can expect if they continue on to post-secondary studies.

The goal of teaching in a blended format is to combine the best parts of online instruction and in-class instruction to best meet the needs of my student body. I intend to offer a variety of online learning activities, to be completed at home, and use classroom time as an opportunity to provide extra instruction or direction for students on an individual, per-their-needs basis. I feel that this will allow my students to accomplish more during their instructional time, and also have a better comprehension of the material at hand.

Obviously, the caveat here is that, in order for a blended learning environment to be successful, there are a three major necessities:

·         Students must have good regular attendance at school

·         Students must have access to a computer with web access

·         Students must work to the best of their abilities both in class and at home

If you do not have a computer and web access at home, there are several computer labs at Lockerby Composite School which are open after hours, and the Sudbury Public libraries and their hours can be located here: http://goo.gl/FIMBTh.

I have attached an example of a blended learning activities that I intend to incorporate into my MPM1D (Grade 9 Academic Math) classroom on the following page. It is an activity that has been modified from the eLearning Ontario LMS, which all of my students will have access to. The activities on the LMS typically provide an overview and expections, but I would just like to show you the content, for now. I feel like it incorporates the blended learning format and the use of technology reasonably well.

If you have questions or concerns about how I intend to incorporate blended learning into the classroom please contact me at grahamc@rainbowschools.ca.

Yours Sincerely,

Chris Graham

Integers Sum

Get out those algebra tiles again and let's see what happens when we start putting the red tiles with the blue tiles.

If you were to take one of each and put them together, what would happen?

When you have one positive and one negative, they cancel each other out and the result is zero.

This is called the zero principal. Zeros occur when you have the same number of negative integers as positive integers.

Each positive tile cancels out a negative tile and the result is zero.

Now, let's see what happens when we take different integers and add them together.

Adding Positive Integers

For this part, just use your red tiles to show the following scenarios:

Adding Negative Integers

For this part, just use the blue tiles to show the following scenarios:

Adding Positive and Negative Integers

So far, you may think working with integers is straightforward. Well, it's about to get more interesting! Let's take a look at what happens when we add both negative and positive integers together.

Are you getting it? When you add negative and positive integers, you can get either a positive or negative answer. It depends on which number is bigger. For example, when you add (-3) and (+5), the five is bigger, so your answer will be positive. If you add (-6) and (+3), your answer will be negative because 6 is bigger than 3. Do you get it?

If you are still having trouble, the following video might help.