As a technology based school, we are often required to keep
up or ahead of the ITC curve. What follows is a brief overview of what you
might see if you enter a Lockerby Composite School math classroom.
At the beginning of class, teachers will review an entry
card from the previous day. Often, we use the iPevo document camera/app to look
at common mistakes. Here is an example of “My Favorite
No.”
When we finish this, we look at the new entry card.
Depending on how onerous the previous day’s lesson is, our entry card is either
done in a Hilroy notebook, or we use the Socrative App as a quick skills check
in.
The nice thing about Socrative is the immediate feedback – we know if we can continue on to a new lesson, or if extra review is necessary.
The nice thing about Socrative is the immediate feedback – we know if we can continue on to a new lesson, or if extra review is necessary.
From there, I like to use the Estimation 180 webpage as a hook. Estimation 180 is often not related to the curriculum, however it allows students an opportunity to practice their estimation skills. Over a three day period, there are three photos, each of which asks students to provide an estimate that is clearly too low, clearly too high, an estimated guess, and reasoning. Below is an example.
When possible, if there is an example of Three Acts Math that is related to the
day’s expectation, we like to try to incorporate it in to the start of the
lesson. Students will use whatever device they have (iPad, laptop, phone) as
their media viewer to access the problem. As an example, when I taught the idea
of proportions to my Grade 9 Applied class, we used the Three Act Problem –
Dueling Discounts, seen below.
From this image, students were presented with a number of products, and had to determine which coupon would be the best option. Act Three is typically an extension question, and for this particular problem, it was about when each coupon would be more beneficial in general. (i.e. what if you were holding two coupons, one that said "$x off" and the other said "x% off)
Once students have had an opportunity to work through a
Three Act problem, typically we either tie the lesson together in some way. A
few examples of how we could do this:
From here, typically, students are given an opportunity to practice their new skills in some way – often from the textbook or from some real-life examples we have come up with or found. The students are asked to either keep copies of their work in a digital portfolio (using Evernote) or will have to use the Apple TV that is in our classrooms to mirror their work as a type of digital Bansho.
- Students could summarize a video from Khan Academy, ClipKwik or TeacherTube (they would do this using some type of digital editor, as we are trying to go paperless)
- Students could access a PDF note using Dropbox and use neu.Annotate to modify a teacher led lesson/discussion on the topic
- Students could create a summary video of the topic using Educreations/Knowmia
From here, typically, students are given an opportunity to practice their new skills in some way – often from the textbook or from some real-life examples we have come up with or found. The students are asked to either keep copies of their work in a digital portfolio (using Evernote) or will have to use the Apple TV that is in our classrooms to mirror their work as a type of digital Bansho.
While not every lesson follows this format, or utilizes all
of these components on a regular basis, I can say that our math department is
incorporating all of the tools mentioned above at least in some way on a fairly
regular basis.
Thanks for sharing this Chris. We can add this to the Math Module that you assisted with for the Junior ABQ.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great outline. It makes me miss teaching math. Can you tell me more about the Socrative app. I have it available on our school iPads , but haven't found a way to get into it yet. Do you think it would be useful in other subject areas like Language as well?
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