Author Archives: Chris Test
The Power of a Recent Counting Experience
As a teacher, I want to know what I can do to support my students’ mathematical development. One of the new “teacher moves” I have learned from our research into Student Adaptive Pedagogy is giving a child a “recent experience of counting.” Today I want you to watch a video of me interviewing Eden. She solves the following three problems: 6 + 3, 7 + 4, and 8 + 5. Let’s think about the same questions we did in my last blog on a Counting All student:
- Did she solve each problem in the same way?
- Was one problem more challenging than another?
- If so, what did you notice that led you to that conclusion?
Eden needed to count an item for each of the addends before she could create material to use to solve the problem. Hiding the blocks after she counted them engaged her need to retrieve a mental image of the blocks and her counting experience. This teacher move supports her development in the abstraction of number. Allowing a child to count something and then hiding it before solving the problem is critical to their development. Before engaging in this area research, I hadn’t realized I should hide material for students. Now I know that hiding material and giving students a recent experience of counting can support their mathematical development.
You may be wondering why we should hide the blocks after a student counts them. The developmental progression we have studied found that as students develop their concepts of number, they move through levels of working with perceptual material (anything visible or tactile, including a drawing), figurative material (mental images of material), and abstract material. If I let her only count the visible blocks, I am not encouraging her growth toward the abstract. Although it is not explicitly stated in common core standards, developing an abstract concept of number is foundational for a student’s mathematical development. Try giving your students a recent experience of counting and let me know how it goes?
The Power of a “Counting-All”
Today we are going to watch a video of Sarina. This video was taken August 28, 2018. She is a great example of what productive struggle looks like in a student. She is going to solve 8 + 5, 9 + 4, and 8 + 6. Some questions to think about are: Did she solve… Continue Reading
Math of Zada: Foundations for Addition
In our work at AIMS, we have opportunities to see many students do some pretty remarkable things. Sometimes we experience students doing exactly what we’ve come to expect them to do, but it is no less remarkable to witness. I’d like to share with you some of my experience with a student named Zada (pseudonym).… Continue Reading
Creating Centers in the Classroom – Part 2
This blog is the second part of a multi-part series titled “Creating Centers in the Classroom.” You can read part 1 HERE. A couple of weeks ago, Brook wrote about working with the entire class to train them in the tasks you intend to use in your centers and then moving the tasks into the… Continue Reading
The Benefits of Teaching with Math Journals
In this post, I want to talk about how I used math journals when I went back to the classroom. Using a journal has been around at least since I entered the teaching field 18 years ago. At the beginning of the year, I found myself swimming in student papers. I knew that I did… Continue Reading
Playful Measurement
Today I want to write about one of the simple ways my colleague Grace and I engaged our students in playful counting. One of the significant things I have realized after reading the research around student adaptive pedagogy is that our students are not counting enough, but that they don’t need more practice with rote… Continue Reading
Choosing a Task based on the Math of Students (part 2)
In my last blog I talked about tasks I chose for my students based off of their mathematical thinking. I was able to do that because the research on student adaptive pedagogy developed a progression that allowed me as a teacher to look for some classic behavior. Last time I wrote about students who use… Continue Reading
Choosing a Task based on the Math of Students (part 1)
In my last blog post, I talked about how Student Adaptive Pedagogy allowed me to meet the diverse needs in my classroom in a way that left my students and me feeling empowered. They were empowered as mathematicians, and I was empowered to use their math to support their academic growth. I mirrored teaching math… Continue Reading
Using My New Teaching Tools from the Research
I started teaching because I love to learn and I wanted to make a difference in my students’ lives. I quickly learned that what a child was learning could be academic, social, or simply personal growth. Learning is complex. Teaching is complex. As a teacher I was making so many decisions everyday. When I taught… Continue Reading
Fostering Productive Struggle
In my last blog post I talked about how reading the research on student adaptive pedagogy has given me a new lens in which to facilitate productive struggle with students. It has been so exciting to see the great effort that students will naturally put forth when a math task is in their zone of… Continue Reading
