Mathematics Updates
May 2018
Help Students Beat the Summer Math Slump
In a blog post, Leah Shafer shares suggestions from three Harvard faculty members for ways families can help reduce summer math loss: (1) highlight the math in everyday activities; (2) read short math stories together; (3) play math games -- including popular board games; and (4) find small ways to practice at home.
Summer math practice packets (and answer keys) have been prepared for students entering first grade all the way up to students entering Algebra 1. Making these practice packets available digitally reduces the time and costs associated with making paper copies, and students who take their Chromebooks home over the summer can use these devices to help keep their math skills sharp.
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YouCubed Offers Interactive Mathematical Mindset Teaching Guide
Jo Boaler and her team at Stanford University have just released an interactive mathematical mindset teaching guide. In addition to the hard copy version of the teaching guide, pictured above, the site offers a digital version which has short video clips imbedded in some of the hexagonal shapes.
A recently published paper, "From Performance to Learning: Assessing to Encourage Growth Mindsets", which describes the assessment for learning cycle is also available on the site. These resources are freely available to you and make perfect summer reading and professional learning.
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Videos for Professional Learning
When Am I Ever Going to Use This?
Visible Learning Mindframes: How Educators Think Matters
Math Is Power, Not Punishment
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2018-2019 Pacing Guide Revision Team Workshops
Audit of Edgenuity Math Courses
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New Gmail Features Can Boost Productivity
- Smart reply, which has been available on Gmail mobile apps for a year, is now available on your desktop. Three possible replies will be suggested for simple conversations. If you choose to pick one, you can send the reply immediately, or you can edit it or add to the text before sending.
- Easy-to-use tools are available with every email received. With the default display density, the attachment will appear as an icon under the email in your inbox. You can click the attachment icon without opening the message to open the attachment. Hover over a message to choose to archive it, delete it, or mark it as read, Snooze is a feature that will be enabled soon. If you have add-ons, those apps are also available. in this line up of tools. And on the right side panel allows you to access Calendar, Keep, and Tasks, all of which are integrated.
- Gmail confidential mode will protect email content by creating expiration dates or recalling previously sent messages. When it rolls out, you will be able to require additional authentication via text message to view an email.
How can you get the updated features on your Gmail account? With your Gmail account open, click on Settings (the gear icon) in the top right corner. Select the "Try new Cowetaschools Gmail". If you want to go back to your old Gmail look and functionality, follow the same steps and select "Go back to classic Gmail."
Read more about these new Gmail features, read the article published April 25, 2018.
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View Multiple Web Pages and/or Apps at Once
Have you tired of clicking back and forth between tabs when you work on your computer? Do you ever wish you had two monitors?
Well, there's an app for that! It won't cause another monitor to materialize on your desktop, but it will split your monitor screen so that it gives you the ability to work on my sites or apps at once without having to continuously click back and forth between tabs or applications.
The Split Tabs app is free and easy to use. You get to choose the grid layout that works for you, whether it is a 1 x 2, 2 x 1, 2 x 2, back to a 1 x 1, or create a layout for your needs. Just click on the Split Tabs icon (pictured beside the first paragraph of this article) and click on your preference.
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PAYBACK Challenge Calculates Costs of Decisions
As students make decisions about the type of college to attend, meal plan, living space, transportation options, etc., the impact of those decisions are calculated. The student's ability to focus on academics, build and maintain relationships, their happiness levels, and student loan debt are tabulated and presented at the bottom of the screen.
Students can start over and see the effects different decisions have on their academic, social, and financial outcomes. No identifying information is entered on the site.
Read about the PAYBACK Challenge here, and get access to additional Next Gen Personal Finance resources here.
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Improving Learning by Having Students Engage in Reflection
Purposefully planning for time in each lesson for students to reflect is beneficial in many ways. According to Jim Dillon these benefits include:
- Respect for the process of learning
- Engagement in metacognition -- thinking about thinking
- Reduction of the cultural bias towards speed and convenience being applied to learning
- Viewing learning as a personal and communal journey rather than a transaction
- Increasing achievement levels and success beyond the school environment
- Discussion about the learning process
- Emphasis on the meaning, value, and purpose of every lesson
- Developing gratitude for the opportunity to learn in a community of learners.
Read Dillon's full article here.
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Ending the School Year ... And Ending a School Career
______________________________________Ending the School Year______________________________________
As the school year comes to a close, NCTM provides some suggestions for finishing the year. A few of these ideas are reprinted below. Read the full list here.
Celebrate progress. If you started off the year with a pre-test to assess where your students were starting from, give it again at the end of the year. This will allow your students to see how much they've learned over the course of the year. Both you and your students can celebrate the satisfying feeling of achievement.
Create a class timeline. In groups, have your students brainstorm to come up with a historic timeline for your class. Give vague guidelines such as, "See if you can think of 10 topics that we learned this year and put them in order." Perhaps, also suggest that each group include an example problem for each topic or some other illustration to "show" the topic. This will not only get your students thinking about what they learned in your class, but it can also be used as a review activity.
Keep expectations high. Students are constantly getting cues from their teachers. Make sure you are giving positive ones! Maintain high expectations for student performance and behavior by setting a good example yourself. Show excitement in the mathematics content even after standardized testing by choosing engaging activities. Don't let your students pick up on how anxious you are for summer to start!
Try something new! Remember that grouping strategy that you swore you were going to try this year, but that somehow slipped your mind? Go find it and give it a try! It is never too late to try new things with your students. New groupings, different activities, class outside in the warm weather, a different mode of testing - all provide needed stimulation for you and your students. Who knows? Your new strategy may work so well that it becomes part of your routine for next year.
____________________________________... And Ending a School Career________________________________
This issue will mark the end of Mathematics Updates ... at least with me as the editor. It has been my privilege to spend so many years teaching students and then working with teachers and administrators. The opportunity to work in such an outstanding school system with such talented and dedicated educators has enabled me to grow personally and professionally.
In my time as the Mathematics Content Specialist, I have ended every professional learning workshop by extending a sincere "thank you" to teachers, and I want to end this publication by expressing my thanks again to all of you who give so much of yourselves -- your time, energy, expertise, and, yes, money -- to your students, classrooms, and schools. Know that the students -- no matter how small or large, how cooperative or difficult -- are worth it. You make a difference. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
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Research base
Alexander, K., Entwisle, D., and Olson, L. (2007). Lasting consequences of the summer learning gap. American Sociological Review, 72(2), 167-180.
Boaler, J., Dance, K., & Woodbury, E. (2018). From performance to learning: Assessing to encourage growth mindsets. Retrieved from https://www.youcubed.org/downloadable/assessing-to-encourage-growth-mindsets/
Cision PR Newswire (2018, February 13). Next Gen Personal Finance launches the Payback challenge to spur family conversations about paying for college. [Website]. Retrieved from https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/new-security-and-intelligent-features-new-gmail-means-business/
Cooper, H., Nye, B., Charlton, K., Lindsay, J., & Greathouse, S. (1996). The effects of summer vacation on achievement test scores: A narrative and meta-analytic review. Review of Educational Research, 66(3), 227-268.
Dillon, J. (2018, April 20). Staying for the credits. [Website']. SmartBrief. Retrieved from http://www.smartbrief.com/original/2018/04/staying-credits
Hattie, J. (2018, April 12). Visible learning mindframes: How educators think matters. [Video]. Presentation at the Education Week 2018 Leaders to Learn From, Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://video.edweek.org/detail/video/5772670215001/john-hattie-on-the-educator-mindframe-and-why-it-matters?autoStart=true&cmp=eml-enl-vid-p3
Meyer. D. (2017, May 4). Math is power, not punishment. [Video]. Presentation at the 2017 Wisconsin Mathematics Conference, Green Lake, WI. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/245292052
NCTM. (n.d.). Finishing the year. [Website]. Retrieved from https://www.nctm.org/conferences-and-Professional-Development/Tips-for-Teachers/Finishing-the-Year/
Shafer, L. (2016, June 24). Summer math loss: Why kids lose math knowledge, and how families can work to counteract it. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/16/06/summer-math-loss
Teaching Channel. (n.d.) When am I ever going to use this?. [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/getting-students-to-persevere-nea
Thacker, D. (2018, April 25). With new security and intelligent features, the new Gmail means business. [Website]. Retrieved from https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/new-security-and-intelligent-features-new-gmail-means-business/
YouCubed. (n.d.). Mathematical mindset teaching guide, teaching video, and additional resources. [Website]. Retrieved from https://www.youcubed.org/mathematical-mindset-teaching-guide-teaching-video-and-additional-resources/