Unit Coordination
Sharing Can be Rigorous Work!
The term “rigor” has been highlighted in education since the Common Core Standards have been adopted. The Common Core Standards have been deemed to be more rigorous and, therefore, students should be engaged in more rigorous lessons. What does it look like for students to be engaged in a rigorous task? Especially in the K-2… Continue Reading
Giant Business Cards and the Art and Science of Communication
Recently, I was listening to an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast entitled, “Alan Alda Wants Us to Have Better Conversations.” The episode details Alan Alda’s work with scientists and health care professionals to help improve their communication. During the interview, he talked about an experience working with the TV show Scientific American Frontiers, during… Continue Reading
Unintended Opportunity
The team I work with at AIMS has begun working with students on fractional understanding and it has been an interesting couple of weeks. We are seeing the students have opportunities to learn things we never intended but still fit right in with expectations in elementary classrooms. Personally, I have discovered that when we develop… Continue Reading
Takeaways from Subtraction (Part 3): The Struggle
Every elementary school teacher has seen children struggle with subtraction. From these struggles, attitudes of “I’m not good at math” emerge. Our team recently worked with students on the concept of subtraction. We presented situations in which students would count out 23 cubes, hide them, and then remove some of the cubes. The students were… Continue Reading
Experts Are Made, Not Born
Teachers are incredibly busy. They need to be the experts on a variety of curricular topics, especially in the elementary years, and for a variety of learners. Most teachers have earned a bachelor’s degree and spent additional time studying pedagogy and curriculum to earn their teaching credential. Further, they have all the wisdom gained from… Continue Reading
Understanding Cognition and the Concept of Number
How do children come to understand a concept? More specifically, how do they develop a concept of number? This is the underlying question to the work we do at the AIMS Center for Math and Science Education. In seeking the answer to this question, we have been reading research around cognition. Needless to say, we… Continue Reading
Games That Promote Mathematical Thinking, Part 2
Before Christmas our team developed a game to work with students on building the concept of equal size groups. We named the game “The Great Wall.” Students are given the task of building the Great Wall of China for the emperor. They are directed to build sections of the wall, each a certain number of… Continue Reading
Put Me in, Coach
Every once in a while, something will happen at work that makes me miss the classroom and the kids that I taught. It’s like a craving at times, but today I feel more like the athlete on the bench that wants a shot at winning the game. Here I am on the sidelines, wanting to… Continue Reading
Takeaways from Subtraction part 2: To Take Away or Not to Take Away
In my last blog entry, I described three goals suggested by Dr. Les Steffe which support introducing subtraction as take away. Yet, there is a belief among some math teachers that thinking of subtraction as take away interferes with future mathematical development. They argue that using the words “take away” should be eliminated completely from… Continue Reading
What Does it Mean to Coordinate in K-6 Mathematics?
In my last blog entry I talked about laying the foundation for fractions in K-2 by thinking about the standard for measurement 1.MD.2 as foundational for the conceptual understanding of fractions. In this entry, I am going to talk about what it means for a student to coordinate units. The word coordinate, when used as… Continue Reading
