Another activity from "Improving learning in mathematics"

This one is based on the type of activity called "Evaluating mathematical statements". They had to decide if the statements I gave them are always true, sometimes true, or never true. Vectors just seem to fit into these types of activities so well!
mar 11 relationships between vectors

It was a lot faster than the interpretation one, no need for groups really. They were all unanimous except for one, and I took a cue from one of my colleagues (thanks Kerry!) and just let them settle it between themselves who was right. I almost shut up during the debate. Still working on that.

How do you do a "classwork" class online?

I'm sure most teachers have days when we like to give classwork so that we can see for ourselves where the kids are, or how well they work, or just have a plain old cooperative problem-solving session.

Well, today in one of my classes I gave time for my students to work on their year-long research projects. I have set aside about 10 classes over the year for this. Each class represents a different step in the research process, and at the end of each class, there is something for them to hand in. For example, today was step 3: writing a reserach question. They had to do an exercise that would help them come up with their research question, so I am expecting to see some in my inbox shortly. This helps them in at least two ways:

1. they won't end up doing their project all at the last minute
2. they are learning how to do a research project.

Everything went great, it's just that I realized one setback to doing this kind of "classwork" in the virtual classroom. Today, I really wanted to see what they were doing. Actually, what I wanted was to see them doing what they were doing.

Not because I wanted to check up on them - these kids are really motivated. It's because I could tell by the private texts they were sending me that they were finding some really interesting stuff for their projects. Abigail asked if she could use a video in her project even if it wasn't hers, because "it's just so awesome!" That one word - awesome - is what made me really want to be there. I needed to see my students being engaged, having success, and having fun! You just don't get that in the virtual classroom.

I guess teachers are human too, and we need some kind of positive feedback. But I'm not talking about getting praise. I mean seeing the looks on their faces when the light goes on, or the excitement sets in, or when the opposite happens, when despair takes hold.

So I've got to find a way to have "classwork" in a virtual classroom wherein I can see their faces and/or their work and/or know firsthand how they're feeling. Hmmmm.

Any ideas out there?

Just tell me what to do

I get really excited when I get new ideas, or try out new tools, like googledocs, voicethread, voki. But I keep wondering how to use them in my classes. I keep coming back to that analogy of the violin student - it's one thing to get notes out of the violin, but it's another thing entirely to make music with it. I'm still getting the notes, and I wish I knew how to make music.

For example, voicethread. What is voicethread best used for? I tried using it as a forum for questions/answers on the day's lesson. Didn't take off. Tried it for collaborative problem solving. Better. About to try it with the vector activity. So I'm getting somewhere through trial and error. And lots of persistence. I know that's what I have to do with all this other cool stuff.

It's just that sometimes, I wish someone would just tell me what to do.

I know, I know, I sound like my students. Miss, why don't you just tell us what to do? Can't you just give us the steps, instead of making us try this and draw that and explain and talk about our FEELINGS?

Because, I say, this way is better. This way you get to figure it out yourselves, and you'll feel proud, and you'll understand it better and retain more of it, and you'll become a lifelong learner like me!

But hey, that's fine for them! I, HOWEVER AM TIRED!

And my feelings get hurt when I read posts like this: http://vihart.com/doodling/  which contain a briliant idea cushioned in a giant rant about how awful teachers are these days! In a very dark corner of my mind, I'm telling this person what to do, believe me.

I guess that's the price we all have to pay for being teachers during a revolution, huh? We really have to walk the walk, not to mention find out where to walk and what to bring on the trip, and who to bring with us, and ok I'm getting carried away with this metaphor.

Fortunately, lots of those tools make it easy for us to share our best attempts at making music. That's the whole point, after all, right? Collaboration makes us all greater than the sum of the parts.

It makes it easy to tell each other what to do!

Vectors Activity Feedback

• First activity - odd man out (which one isn't a vector) in breakout rooms. They found the non-vector quickly. Had them explain to their room why it wasn't a vector. Brought all back and then all together discussed why the rest of them ARE vectors - how their directions + norms were indicated and what their directions and norms were. What worked: Good for refreshing memories about Pythagoras What didn't: too easy, they found it so fast because it was the first one on the slide, and because they knew what they were looking for Next time: Don't tell them what the distinguishing feature of the odd man out was
• Second activity - interpreting multiple representations (Find all the vectors that are identical) also in BOR, same groups. Wow. No one finished it, but lots of great discussions and questions between room members:
• Is AB the same as BA?
• AB representation really gave pause - how to see it as a vector
• What do those < > brackets mean
• Doesn't that mean 3 right then 4 up? 
• Lots of time focussed on AB and BA. I suggested they graph the points A and B and join them to form AB then BA, then see what the components were. Next time I'll make the 2 graphs that were part of the slide bigger so they can fit those points on. Or have geogebra or explorelearning open so they can graph quicker.
• Might have been too much in this slide?
• We'll definitely continue it tomorrow, and maybe after they do the rest of the explorelearning gizmo activity they'll be back in the swing of things. I will remind them to have the vectors gizmo at the ready, and to use the gizmo if they need to graph a vector

And I thought it would take them 3 minutes to do it!

My first attempt at creating an activity using this document as inspiration and guide:
https://www.ncetm.org.uk/public/files/224/improving_learning_in_mathematicsi.pdf
...specifically, the part about "Interpreting multiple representations". I thought it would be a great warmup for tomorrow, which is the first day back after March break. Besides which, vectors can be represented so many different ways, this just seemed the ideal activity:

Mar 8 Vector Recap Activity

We'll see how it goes tomorrow! It took several hours to make this and it will probably take all of 3 minutes in class to do...it's a start anyway!

Going Public

These days it takes me a while to make connections. What can I say, I'm not in my twenties anymore. Ahem.

Read something a while ago about how a classblog dies after a while if you restrict it so that only class members can comment. Hmm I thought...interesting.

Then my classblog got a couple of shoutouts on Twitter from Darren K and others. I told my students about it and they were really excited to hear that their words were tweeted, or tweeted about! Miss, you mean we're famous? Cool, I thought....

Only now am I realizing that that was first-hand evidence of the very least impact that going public would have. At least. Just imagining what else might happen...after all, when I see that someone from Russia has read my post, I am giddy with joy! Imagine if they got to experience that, or if they got to interact with a student from Russia!

I have got to go public. Of course I will have to moderate everything, I'm ready to do that for my students. I wonder if I will one day read that and think "Right. Twit." Problems you wish you had.

Embedding a quiz using googledocs

Trying out one of the bazillion ideas at this site: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/p/creating-effective-blogs-websites.html

It took maybe 10 minutes to create this and embed it here, just following instructions:



And OMG it worked. I even figured out how to edit the size of the quiz thingy so it fits into the post. I just replaced the numbers in the html code where it says "height =" and "width =" . I think that I have just written html. I think I am a genius.

When someone does this little quiz, I can then see their name, their answers, and when they did it. Google. Where have I been?