Session 1: November 30, 2017

Notes from today: 

Morning math session and instructional routines:

1. Check out Daniel Finkle and Math for Love!

2. Activity: 1-2 Nim (one-pager handout)

3. #NoticeWonder: try searching this hashtag on Twitter

Afternoon professional inquiry of practice session:

1. Links to the articles we looked at: Collaborative Inquiry for Educators and Teacher Inquiry: A defining feature of professional practice 

2. Here is a link to the presentation from this session: Professional Inquiry

Session 4 2016/17

We started our day with a check in: a reflection from "Mathematical Mindsets" by Jo Boaler.

Then we broke out the algebra tiles and got to work!  

Here is Sue's package on how to use algebra tiles: Algebra Tiles

For next time review these documents and we will continue work on our continuum: 

K-5 Big Ideas

6-7 Big Ideas
8-9 Big Ideas

Then review these questions to prepare for our reflection work: 
Reflection

Our next session is Thursday, April 20th. See you then!

Session 3 2016/17

We started our session with an exploration of some math games and activities. Here are the links to these resources:


Game: (intermediate plus) “Prime Climb” from Math for Love
Game: (primary plus) “Tiny Polka Dot” also from Math for Love (order through Kick Starter)
For tessellations: Tiling Turtles: from Talking Math with Your Kids, also other tessellation tools.

We had a check in on our experience with the instructional strategy "Which One Doesn't Belong" in our classrooms and our reflections on Chapter 2 of "Mathematical Mindsets". (Here is a link to our notes from Session 3).

Then we started out on a continuum looking at the assumptions we might make K-9 of our students. This work will continue next session...

Homework:

• Finding inspiration from the visuals used in Graham Fletcher's "Progression of Fractions", incorporate visuals into one of your lessons and report back on how it went.

• Read a chapter (your choice) in "Mathematical Mindsets" and report back next day. 

Next session is Thursday, March 16th! from 9-12:30pm (or whatever works for you to get back to your school on time for the afternoon) at GISS in Sue's classroom (N205). 

Session 2 2016/17

Our second session began with a check in on our Northern Lights Assessments and our "What is Math?" activities. 

Notes from our session can be found here: Math Inquiry Notes Dec. 1

Next we explored the instructional routine "Which One Doesn't Belong?" starting with the example below: 

Take a look at this website to find some more examples to get started with: Which One Doesn't Belong? 

Another great resource is the original book: 

Homework:

• Try out WODB in your classroom (in many different variations, etc.) and share out your observations/thoughts/ideas next session.

• Read Chapter 2 of “Mathematical Mindsets”

Jim will present on “spirolaterals” next session which is Thursday, January 19th!

Session 1 of 2016/17

We had a wonderful first session in our Math Inquiry Project! Lively discussion and some good laughter as well!

Here are all of the resources from today*:

Invitation and Program for 2016/17

Agenda and Notes from today (Oct. 27, 2016)

A couple of one (or two) pagers from two awesome math teachers:

Marion Small - this resource has tons of interesting open-ended questions to promote curiosity in math class. She also has some great recommendations and tips on teaching math.

Fawn Nguyen - these are Susan's notes from Fawn's keynote at the BC Math Teachers Association conference this fall. Some excellent thoughts and important considerations for teaching math!

We discussed the inquiry process we could use to examine our professional practice. Here are some notes on the Spirals Of Inquiry, as well as some thoughts on making math meaningful for our students.

• We will begin with "scanning", so to start us off we are all committed to doing a simple assessment from this resource: Northern Lights Numeracy Assessment .

We also decided to do a check in with our students on their attitude and feelings towards Math: 

• One idea was to have a class discussion about math focusing on "what is math?" and "where do we find math?" This would be followed up with asking students to answer these questions: What causes you to feel successful when you are doing math? What causes you to struggle in math? and What learning environment makes you feel comfortable in a math class? 
• Another idea was to have students create a web about math (same questions as the class discussion above). 

We decided to order Jo Boaler's book "Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential Through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching" as our book study book. Hopefully these will arrive before our December 1st session!

NEXT SESSION: Plan to report back in and bring samples from doing an assessment with your class from the Northern Lights Numeracy Assessment and from your check in with students about their attitude and feelings towards math.

*I've also added all of these resources to our shared folder. This folder has been developed over three years of our Math Inquiry Projects. You can save it to your Google Drive and access it easily that way (if you are not sure how to do this, I can show you!).

Math Inquiry 2016/17

Math Inquiry Invitation and Overview for 2016/17

Interesting Articles

Gail suggested this might be a great post to add to our blog. Looks like a great read with some ideas to keep the enthusiasm up as we transition into "end of year" time:

Teaching Channel: Featuring Jo Boaler and Math Mindsets


Enjoy!