#MathPhotoADay Project
The #mathphotoaday project was started by a third grade teacher named Mrs. Bettes in Manitoba. She started out having her third graders take pictures of a math concept every day for the whole month of May. Each day, she would give them a prompt, such as to take a picture of a polygon. Then these were shared on Twitter. The students learned quite a bit from the project and it allowed them to be creative. It was also a great way to get the students to start seeing math concepts in their real life surroundings.
In a high school classroom, I would make the prompts a little more challenging. I could have students take pictures of different situations where using the Pythagorean Theorem would apply, for example. I would have students upload these to the classroom blog so that all of the students could see them and I could review them. I think it would be fun to see what students come up with, and I think students will enjoy looking for ways to use math in real life. It could be a fun way to end the school year by reviewing major concepts we covered.
I read about this project in two different articles by Richard Byrne in Free Technology for Teachers. These are titled Making Observations With "Photo a Day" Projects and Photograph Math - #mathphotoaday . Check these out and I hope you enjoy.
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Feedly Article #2
Flipped Classrooms
The idea of flipped classrooms is relatively new to the education world and has been made possible by the many technologies we have today. A flipped classroom is exactly that, "flipped." Where a traditional classroom teacher lectures or has some other passive instructional content during class time and sends homework (the assessment) home with students, flipped classrooms take a more active role. Flipped classrooms focus on the more active assessments in class and the passive instruction at home. Two advantages of flipping a classroom are that there is more time for formative assessments and there is more time for individualized and differentiated instruction. Because students are watching the lecture or reading over material at home, the time in class can be spent on applying the material the students have learned. This leaves more opportunities for teachers to have one on one learning experiences with students.
I can see many ways I could use the flipped classroom design in a high school math classroom. I could have students watch my lecture videos at home or even have them read a section in their math book on the topic before coming to class the following day. Then, in class, we can work in stations. Students could get into groups and discuss what it is they learned from the video or reading assignment. After that, we would dive right into the assessment part of things by working in groups to solve a few problems and maybe do a few on the board. If some students are still having trouble, this would be a good time for me to work separately with them while others were working together on example equations or projects.
I learned more information about flipped classrooms through the article called Two Key Advantages of a Flipped Classroom in the online journal Educational Technology and Mobile Learning.
The idea of flipped classrooms is relatively new to the education world and has been made possible by the many technologies we have today. A flipped classroom is exactly that, "flipped." Where a traditional classroom teacher lectures or has some other passive instructional content during class time and sends homework (the assessment) home with students, flipped classrooms take a more active role. Flipped classrooms focus on the more active assessments in class and the passive instruction at home. Two advantages of flipping a classroom are that there is more time for formative assessments and there is more time for individualized and differentiated instruction. Because students are watching the lecture or reading over material at home, the time in class can be spent on applying the material the students have learned. This leaves more opportunities for teachers to have one on one learning experiences with students.
I can see many ways I could use the flipped classroom design in a high school math classroom. I could have students watch my lecture videos at home or even have them read a section in their math book on the topic before coming to class the following day. Then, in class, we can work in stations. Students could get into groups and discuss what it is they learned from the video or reading assignment. After that, we would dive right into the assessment part of things by working in groups to solve a few problems and maybe do a few on the board. If some students are still having trouble, this would be a good time for me to work separately with them while others were working together on example equations or projects.
I learned more information about flipped classrooms through the article called Two Key Advantages of a Flipped Classroom in the online journal Educational Technology and Mobile Learning.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
My YouTube Playlist about Classroom Management
I have added a YouTube playlist called Classroom Management focusing on the high school level. I have included three videos that I believe have really good information. One area that I do not think I am prepared for is managing the classroom. These videos have given me some incite on what I can do to gain respect and have a well behaved group of students.
A few pieces of advice I have picked up from this playlist are that I should not focus on classroom management and I should set high expectations at the beginning. Instead of focusing on the management and discipline part of teaching, I should be focusing on making the classroom environment a safe one that is made for learning purposes. I also should make sure my students know what is expected of them, and I should be fair with the consequences. If students know what will happen if they do not meet the expectations, and I follow through every time, the students will feel safe.
A few pieces of advice I have picked up from this playlist are that I should not focus on classroom management and I should set high expectations at the beginning. Instead of focusing on the management and discipline part of teaching, I should be focusing on making the classroom environment a safe one that is made for learning purposes. I also should make sure my students know what is expected of them, and I should be fair with the consequences. If students know what will happen if they do not meet the expectations, and I follow through every time, the students will feel safe.
SMART Board Videos
I reviewed two different videos on SMART Notebook that I think would be very useful in the classroom.
1. Gameboards for SMARTboards by aprissm
This video provided a step-by-step guide on how to create interactive game boards using SMART Notebook. After picking a background color, the game squares are chosen by clicking on the Gallery tab under Essentials for Educators. These game squares can be placed anywhere on the screen and hold the questions. If students want to check their answer, they simply have to click on the square. After all of the squares are put into place, a start and finish square can be made by finding the shapes section in the Gallery tab. All of these squares can be locked into place so that students cannot move them around by right clicking and finding where it says "lock into place." Tokens can also be made for students to move around the game board. Again, different shapes for making the tokens can be found in the shapes section of the Gallery tab. These tokens can be locked so that they can move but cannot be resized. Instead of clicking on "lock into place," "Allow Movement" needs to be clicked. There is also a section in the Gallery to place a die on the game board so that when students click on it, it gives them a random number of spaces they are supposed to move.
2. SMARTboard Recorder Tutorial by Baynard Bailey
This is a very short simple video, but there was a lot of information in it. Bailey shows how to use SMARTboard Recorder. He starts out by explaining that there is a Record button, a Pause button, and a Stop button. The most helpful thing he explained was the different types of recordings that can be done. There is a Record Desktop option which records the whole SMARTboard screen or there is the option to Record Area which allows the user to create a box on the screen that is recorded. This is for when you want to hide some things on your screen and drag things into the box that you would like to be in the recording. One thing I found interesting was that in the Record Area option, as soon as the box is created, it is automatically recorded. Also, once the recording is stopped, immediately a preview pops up for the user to view.
1. Gameboards for SMARTboards by aprissm
This video provided a step-by-step guide on how to create interactive game boards using SMART Notebook. After picking a background color, the game squares are chosen by clicking on the Gallery tab under Essentials for Educators. These game squares can be placed anywhere on the screen and hold the questions. If students want to check their answer, they simply have to click on the square. After all of the squares are put into place, a start and finish square can be made by finding the shapes section in the Gallery tab. All of these squares can be locked into place so that students cannot move them around by right clicking and finding where it says "lock into place." Tokens can also be made for students to move around the game board. Again, different shapes for making the tokens can be found in the shapes section of the Gallery tab. These tokens can be locked so that they can move but cannot be resized. Instead of clicking on "lock into place," "Allow Movement" needs to be clicked. There is also a section in the Gallery to place a die on the game board so that when students click on it, it gives them a random number of spaces they are supposed to move.
2. SMARTboard Recorder Tutorial by Baynard Bailey
This is a very short simple video, but there was a lot of information in it. Bailey shows how to use SMARTboard Recorder. He starts out by explaining that there is a Record button, a Pause button, and a Stop button. The most helpful thing he explained was the different types of recordings that can be done. There is a Record Desktop option which records the whole SMARTboard screen or there is the option to Record Area which allows the user to create a box on the screen that is recorded. This is for when you want to hide some things on your screen and drag things into the box that you would like to be in the recording. One thing I found interesting was that in the Record Area option, as soon as the box is created, it is automatically recorded. Also, once the recording is stopped, immediately a preview pops up for the user to view.
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