Touching Base

Just a quick note for those of you from class who were under the weather last week. We took up chapter 9 about issues of gender. Rosemary did a lovely job of working us through the chapter. We have only two classes left! Hard to imagine!

If you are interested in reading A Mathematician's Lament, please email me and I will get it to you.

See you on Thursday, and if you have any questions, drop me a line.

Thanks!

Tonight's Class

Hi everyone. Looking forward to this evening's class as we take up some of the issues of gender and mathematics education.

Grade 1/2 Class Blog

In class I mentioned a grade one/two class at University School in Calgary, Alberta. This is a public school that I have visited and I love that the children are blogging their daily class activities. This is a great chance for you to see what children are doing daily in a class that in inquiry based. They mention their mathematics work frequently in their postings.

Here is the link to their blog. If you wish to contact one of the teachers to ask about the children's work, please let me know in our next class.

Enjoy!

Hi everyone. Just a reminder that our next class is November 19th.

Dr. Elaine Simmt from the University of Alberta has written the following article, Citizenship Education in the Context of School Mathematics which I believe you will find interesting. Perhaps we can discuss it the next time we are together.

Get healthy. Stay healthy!

Nel Noddings

Hi everyone. This evening in class I wish to bring another scholar's work to your attention. You may have come across Nel Noddings' writings in prior courses. We will look at some of her work in general, but focus in on her work dealing with mathematics education.

See you later today.

Interesting article, considering our work

I came across this last year....

Almost half of England's schools are not teaching mathematics well enough, putting too much emphasis on "teaching to the test", inspectors have said.

Ofsted said pupils were taught to pass exams and results had improved, but understanding of the subject had not.

Read the rest of this article from the BBC here....

Making Progress

Hi all.

I want to thank Sharon and Michelle for doing fine work of taking us through chapters four and five in our text. This evening Scott will lead our group discussion of chapter six. If there is time, I would like if we could share some of our blog postings with one another. (just using the room technology - nothing fancy or time consuming).

See you this evening!

Your Topics

Tomorrow after the break we need to find time to discuss together your proposed topics for your project. I request that these be put in writing, one paragraph maximum is all that is needed, stating what you wish to investigate and how you wish to frame it. (paper, website, blog, etc)

Hopefully you have had the chance to begin to sort through the research literature out there to see how rich your topic is. The narrower the focus the better, mostly. We can help one another with our topics tomorrow evening if you are still unsure about what approach you wish to take, or to settle on one topic in particular.

See you tomorrow.

Last week I shared Math Curse with you, the award winning children's picture book by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith and published by Viking.

There is so much you can do with this book. The fun begins when Mrs. Fibonacci tells the class, "You know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem...."

ISBN-10: 0670861944
ISBN-13: 978-0670861941

What's Math Got to Do with It?

Last week I showed you this great book by Boaler called What's Math Got to Do with It? Helping Children Learn to Love their Least Favourite Subject - And Why It's Important for America.

This book is helpful for parents and teachers. I strongly encourage you get a copy for your school or for yourself to share with parents or as a book study for professional development with your grade team.

The Number Devil

In class on Thursday we briefly discussed the following best selling children's book, The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

It is a chapter book containing colourful illustrations of various mathematical discoveries.

It's a best seller, so I think you'll enjoy reading it, and your students - particularly your elementary students - will find it engaging and entertaining.

I wouldn't limit it to just elementary students at all as it makes a great whole class read-a-loud. It will depend on your students of course!

Schedule

Here is the schedule for leading discussions and bringing nourishment:

October 8th -Sharon Chapter 4
October 15th - Michelle Chapter 5
October 22nd - Scott Chapter 6
October 29th - Krista Chapter 7
November 5th - Terri-Lynn Chapter 8
November 19th - Jennifer Chapter 9
November 26th - Melanie Chapter 10
December 3rd - Rosemary Chapter 11

Some people are swapping dates for official 'food bringing' and that is perfectly okay. Do whatever works for you.

Last Week

Hi everyone. Hope you have had a good week so far.

It was great to get back in the swing of things with you once more and I appreciated how attentive you were to our topics of conversation.

To re-cap, I shared with you some books as well as literature suggestions for you to turn to in your own furthering of your mathematics education understanding. I will try to post those books on here at some point.

We took up Schoenfeld's article and then we looked at the first three chapters of Boaler's text. We created the schedule as to who is going to lead which discussions. I will post that on here too, for your reference. We talked about the blogging and tried to sort out any technical issues for people.

I can already sense that the class is beginning to gel into a thoughtful seminar group and that is really great.

Tomorrow evening Sharon is going to led us through Chapter Four. Looking forward to it!

Over the Next Few Weeks

Hi everyone. I hope you have been able to track down Jo Boaler's text for the class. I would like for us to be able to discuss up to the end of Chapter 3 for October 1st. This includes Shoenfeld's forward to the text. You can blog your thoughts on these readings as you progress through them.

You should also read Shoenfeld's article from 1988, When Good Teaching Leads to Bad Results as some background.

On October 1st we will determine which chapter/day you will be leading the discussion. Typically we do one chapter a week and explore the issues stemming from that chapter. We will also set up our nourishment schedule then too. :)

I am including some resources and links for you to the right. Please make yourself familiar with them as you think about a topic that you might want to explore further for your own inquiry into a critical issue.

Until next time,

Mary

Mathematics Autobiography

Hi everyone,

Please create a post where you reflect on your own learning of mathematics in school. This is your math autobiography.

Rationale: Many people have difficulty remembering their mathematics education in primary/elementary grades. In order to begin to study the teaching of mathematics to children it is important to revisit your own education in mathematics. it is necessary to reflect on your assumptions, emotions, and nostalgia surrounding your experiences and to critically examine them. Consider the following:

• What did mathematics in your classroom look like (kindergarten-grade 6)? Be descriptive.
• What is your best and/or worst memory surrounding mathematics in primary and elementary? How has this affected your views about mathematics now as an adult?
• Were you good or not good at math? How did you know this?
• What was the role of the teacher in your math classes? How do you think they felt about mathematics?
• What did assessment look like?
• Tell briefly about math in high school.
• What math courses did you take in university?
• Did you take any math electives?
• Do you / did you engage with mathematics in your life in major ways?
• How do you feel about mathematics now?

I would like it if we could share some of this next time we are together in class.

Hope you are having a great start to your week.

Sir Ken Robinson Video

So great to meet you all last night!

To start our work together this semester, we began with the following short video to get the conversation going...

Do Schools Kill Creativity?



Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. He challenges the way we look at education and children.

So what does this mean for you, as a teacher, with regards to teaching and in particular with regards to teaching mathematics to children?

Welcome to the Fall 2009 Semester

Welcome to the start of the 2009 Fall semester. I hope you enjoy our new pedagogical space in E-4009 in the Faculty of Education at Memorial.

We will be using this class blog as another pedagogical space way to stay in conversation when we are not face to face. Welcome to Critical Issues in Mathematics Education!