Playing With the Common Core

AL Abacus for Race to 100

This past Saturday, I presented at Math In Action 2013. This conference for K-12 mathematics teachers is hosted every February by Grand Valley State University.  My one hour session (view my PowerPoint presentation here) was Playing With the Common Core. Here's the outline of my lesson plan for the session: 

Objective: The learner will explore using strategic early number sense games as a context for intentional instruction.

Schema Activation:  (10 min) The role of context in intentional instruction. Read aloud the first page of Grandma Eudora's T-Shirt Factory from Contexts for Learning Mathematics. Briefly highlight within the story contexts for the 5 & 10 structures, use of a "T-chart" as a place value mat, and finally composing and decomposing two-digit numbers. Participants turn and talk about the role of context in instruction.

Focus:  (10 min) Review the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) Content Standards & CCSSM Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMP) for grades K - 2, with emphasis on the SMP.

Activity: (20 min) Session participants explore and play the following Early Number Sense Games. Click on the link for a materials list.

• Roll-a-Square
• Part-Whole Bingo
• Race to 100
• Exchange Game
• Make 20
• Tens Go Fish

Reflection: (20 min)  Reflect on the games you played and write your own scenario anchored in the context of one of the games you played. Special focus on the Standards for Mathematical Practice.

Don't leave learning to chance--you can center your instruction by setting up a scenario around a game that has been a common shared experience by the students in your classroom. This can be done with individual students, in a small group for intervention, within your mathematics workshop, or even whole group. Examples:

• Race to 100: (Content Std: Count by 10 from any number; SMP: Mathematical structure) "Remember when we were playing Race to 100? Let's say I'm on 14. What if I rolled three tens in a row? Where would I land at the end of each turn?"

• Part-Whole Bingo: (Content Std: composing & decomposing numbers; SMP: Problem Solving) "What if I just rolled a seven and all of the towers with seven are filled? What could I do to be sure to use all seven of my cubes?"

From a teacher perspective, write a short narrative scenario that you can use in your classroom related to both a CCSSM Content Standard, and more importantly, one or more of the Standards for Mathematical Practice that is anchored in the game(s) you explored.

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Early Number Sense

One in five adults in the United States is functionally innumerate; they do not possess the mathematical competencies needed for many modern jobs.  (Geary,  Hoard, Nugent, & Bailey,  2013).

In the three sections of MTH 222, Mathematics for Elementary Teachers II, that I'm teaching this semester at Grand Valley State University, my students are learning about research-based games that help elementary students develop number sense and gain a conceptual understanding of place value. An article in the Education Week blog Inside School Research features the results of a longitudinal study published in the current edition of the online journal, PLoS ONE. The study found that number sense is a better predictor of students' later math achievement than counting or other speed-based measures. The authors go on to conclude that "first grade number system knowledge predicts seventh grade functional numeracy" (Geary et al., 2013). As teachers, we must be prepared to assess and evaluate our student's early number sense. And, more importantly, provide appropriate intervention experiences that immerse our students in rich experiences that expand their early understandings of the relationships between numbers.

So, tonight I was doing a Google search for games that promote number sense--in particular a game called Part-Whole Bingo from Contexts for Learning Mathematics Investigating Number Sense, Addition and Subtraction. I came across a blog post I wrote on 'Mrs. Coffey's Classroom Blog' a few years ago when I was teaching 1st grade at Edgewood Elementary school at Fruitport Community Schools. What a wonderful surprise!

Here is the photo I posted on that blog on February 26, 2010.

I'll be using this game, as well as a few others, in my presentation at the  Math In Action 2013 Conference this Saturday at GVSU and introducing it to my pre-service teachers in class next week.

Geary DC, Hoard MK, Nugent L, Bailey DH (2013) Adolescents’ Functional Numeracy Is Predicted by Their School Entry Number System Knowledge. PLoS ONE 8(1): e54651. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0054651

Nitpicking??

Really?? Do Sal Khan and his supporters really understand where the word "nitpicking" came from? I know it's used informally as an adjective to suggest that one is looking for small or unimportant errors or faults. But I also know nitpicking, literally, is critical for student success.

Almost a month ago two math education professors from Grand Valley State University released a video they made satirizing one of the Khan Academy videos on multiplying and dividing integers. They highlight both mathematical and pedagogical concerns.

If you want to see the entire history, check out this Storify page by Audrey Watters. If you're wondering "what were these guys thinking??", check out these blog posts by Dave Coffey*.

Khan's initial response was to pull the video in question and post an updated video. He also commented on Justin Reich's Education Week blog post entitled Don't Use Khan Academy without Watching this First:

We at the Khan Academy really appreciate the feedback from you and your colleagues regarding videos that could use improvement.

But, a few days later he was quoted in a piece by the Chronicle of Higher Education:

. . . so it's kind of weird when people are nitpicking about multiplying negative numbers.

What really struck me in Khan's comments to the Chronicle, was the word "nitpicking". He's not alone in suggesting that those who find errors in his videos are nitpicking. Many comments made by Khan supporters also suggest these two professors are nitpicking and, just today, Teach for America had a blog post that also dismissed critiques of Khan Academy videos as "nitpicking".

Picture Courtesy: Medline Plus

Nitpicking is, unfortunately a very common occurrence in elementary schools. Over the years, I have had a number of students who reported to the office daily for nitpicking. It was the only way we were able to keep them in school, because in Michigan, students can be in school with nits, but not with live lice. If you don't get rid of the nits, AKA nitpicking, the live bugs hatch, multiply and spread to others.

So, maybe it's a good idea that someone is "nitpicking" Khan Academy videos. If Khan doesn't find and correct the little, seemingly unimportant errors (nits), the millions of viewers that he reports watch his videos from around the world may find they've developed critical misconceptions, kind of like having the nits hatch into live bugs.

*Full disclosure, I am married to Dave Coffey. Don't let the lame satire fool you, he's really a nice guy. :)

Read at the Beach!

Read at the Beach is an annual March is Reading Month tradition for 1st graders at my school. Of course the end of March is usually too cold to really go to the beach, so we turn our cafeteria into the beach with a little imagination, some beachy props, and great calypso music by our own technology director, Jeff Grossenbacher. (Also of Two Dudes in Flip Flops and Island Breeze fame!) Jeff gets us started with a reading of The Jolly Mon by Jimmy Buffett and his daughter, Savannah Jane.

Then, the kids are off to "read at the beach"!

 

Writing Process

A few years ago, Su Palmer was assistant superintendent of curriculum for my district. She introduced me to writing workshop, "draft books", writing demonstrations,  Dancing With the Pen, Smith and Elley's (1997) How Children Learn to Write,  Effective Literacy Practice. I couldn't get enough. As I began to develop my understandings, I made significant changes in my teaching practice and watched my students grow as writers.

After serving as superintendent in a K-8 school for a few years, Su is now teaching at the college level. She visited my classroom last week to observe my students during our literacy block to get a feel for the realities of the classroom.

She reminded me of two key components of effective writing instruction:
1) make the writing process explicit
2) follow the writing process all the way through to publishing

And, she reminded me of the value of collegial conversations.

My students have been doing lots of pre-writing, drafting, revising, and some editing all year. But, somehow in our busyness, publishing had taken a back seat. The reality is, it's not easy to squeeze in publishing without making it a priority. So, to help make the writing process visible and explicit, we made this chart as a class and have it posted in a prominent place. And, I've started publishing student writing--my goal is to confer with at least 3-4 students each day until each student has one published piece over the next 2 weeks.

Charts & Challenges

Last week was the second full week of school and I was feeling pretty pleased with how well things were going. We had created "I" Charts (I for Independent) for 3 of the Daily 5 literacy tasks, practiced them and had built up from 3 to 6 minutes of stamina for Read to Self time.

For the most part, students were beginning to follow the routines and procedures we had made together. Below are the rough drafts that were made with my students. I always have a vision of what these Procedure Charts should contain and always re-create them every year with my new students. I've found the process of having students help develop these charts results in a stronger learning community and greater student buy-in. They never cease to amaze me with what they come up with! The rough drafts stay up for a couple of days in case they need to be modified or edited. I then make a permanent copy of each one. Charts are together on a book ring and hang in a prominent place.

Procedure Chart rough draft examples from this year

Despite all of this, something happened. . . not sure what or why, but we had a major set-back--down to only 2 minutes of Read to Self. After 2 days of re-teaching, more teacher and student demonstrations and practice, we were still having problems.

Final draft from last year

 

Time to dig deeper and have students define what Read to Self time would look and sound like under certain conditions; so together we made a rubric and created a "Read to Self Time-O-Meter" to monitor how they were doing with building stamina. So far, it seems to have done the trick--8 minutes today! And, should we have a set-back at any point during the year, we'll use the Classroom Meeting format for problem solving.

 The cute Time-O-Meter to monitor stamina came from Nicole Scott's awesome blog,  Flipping For First Grade and Pinterest. This visual has really helped---my students are so proud of their progress toward their goal of 15 minutes!

 

Read to Self Rubric--We used the I Chart above for the far left column and students brainstormed ideas for the other 2 columns!

 These are a couple of other "Challenges" we are monitoring daily for quality by timing, recording and posting data. These ideas came from the Langford Quality Learning seminar my district sponsored a while back.

Back To School!

New garden path

Our "Barbie & G I Joe" kayaks

In less than two weeks I'll be greeting my new 1st Graders for their first day of school! It's had to believe that the summer passed by so quickly. The summer was filled with lots of fun, work on projects around my home, some travel and, of course, new learning for me.

Where to start??

I'm working very hard to get my mind back into the 'school mode'. I'm thinking about the usual things like how to arrange my classroom, how to  establish a learning community and what to do during the first days. I'm also reflecting on how to apply my new learning from Cognitive CoachingSM Foundations I & II.  So far, I've completed days 1-6 and am already looking forward to days 7 & 8 in September and Group Cognitive Coaching in October. Each interaction with students, colleagues, parents and friends will be an opportunity to practice my new skills!