Little Steps, Part 1
There you are, sitting in your classroom after all the students have left for the day and you’re pondering just how much you think your students have grown academically throughout the school year. I know this situation, I can remember being in it many times. Unfortunately, I focused a lot more on what my students… Continue Reading
Pi – Pe – Pa Principles
This past weekend I heard a powerful, inspirational presentation by a wise, older gentleman, Mr. Janzen, who has been a college president, a pastor, and a counselor. He talked about three principles that have guided him through the years. He calls them the pi – pe – pa principles, where pi stands for powerful insights,… Continue Reading
Spring is in the Air – Bloom with Early Mathematics
Spring is just around the corner and families will soon begin enjoying more outside activities such as walks, picnics, and working on the yard. Our world is a giant playground but statistically, children are spending less time outside than when their parents were children. What can parents, grandparents, caretakers, and early learning staff do to… Continue Reading
AIMS Outreach Role to Increase
Since its inception the outreach side of the AIMS Center has focused upon two major initiatives: The AIMS Colloquium Series and The ZPC Podcast. These have been quite successful with both garnering appropriate attendance and listenership. However, we here seldom like to rest on our laurels. We are planning some significant pushes into both regional… Continue Reading
Episode 25 | Vertical Threads in California Core Standards in Mathematics
Carl Veater joins us in the studio this week. He has spent a large amount of time examining the “Progressions” documents that were the genesis of the standards that have become the California Core State Standards in Mathematics. These document outline how several content themes are coherently linked through the grade levels and were in fact constructed in this manner for the first time in the Standards era of education. Carl describes how teachers can make use of these threads to make curricular decisions, and most importantly how to decide which topics are not specifically warranted for their grade or course level. A very engaging topic for teachers concerned with how to decide what to keep and what to let go of in order to address at appropriate depth the core topics in their curriculum.
Collaborative Brilliance – Is your Professional Learning Community/Network Working?
More times that I can count, I have heard teachers say, “My PLC/N does not work!” I find myself thinking about that statement quite often, so I wanted to share my thoughts about it. We have to spend time and ask ourselves if the systems we have in place are working. If something is broken,… Continue Reading
Mathematics of Grace: Limitations and Perturbation (Productive Struggle)
In my last blog I wrote about one of the first things I noticed about the mathematics of Grace. She used her fingers to solve addition situations like 7+4 by constructing more advanced finger patterns, where one finger could mean one or eleven and six fingers could mean six or sixteen. This allowed her to… Continue Reading
Change is Hard!
Last September, the California governor signed Assembly Bill 1732 which adds an article to the Health and Safety Code relating to restrooms in a public building. This bill will, commencing March 1, 2017, require all single-user toilet facilities in any business establishment to be identified as all-gender toilet facilities. Our facility at The AIMS Center… Continue Reading
Play Can Be Hard Fun
In a previous blog post, I asked several questions related to the work of our early childhood mathematics team: What teacher knowledge is needed in order to enhance adult-child interactions and help children learn the most in play contexts? What experiences can support preschool teachers in deepening their knowledge of children’s mathematical thinking and the… Continue Reading
Science Education in the AIMS Center
Children arrive in the classroom not as empty vessels waiting to be filled but they come as “software” installed” individuals with their own ideas about how the world works, this is especially true in science education. Children, from the youngest of ages, are “little scientists” playing, testing, and exploring the world around them hundreds of… Continue Reading
