First of all, hats off to nearly 100 teachers who took time out of busy schedules to answer my two survey questions recently. The first question asked teachers where they were in their personal implementation of the Common Core Math Standards. The second question was:
“What are your top two questions about how to implement the Common Core Math Standards in your classroom?”
Finding Time and Filling the Gaps
As I analyzed the results I discovered two main themes. One of the themes, which I will delve into in this post, is centered around how to find time to successfully implement the Common Core math standards, especially considering that teachers are also charged with filling the gaps in student knowledge. These gaps are either caused by a lack of past student learning or the difficult transition that can occur when implementing the new curriculum. [Read more…]
Pi Day is the biggest mathematical holiday that is celebrated in my middle school. Years ago, I had students bring in pies and we did a few fun pi day activities in my own classroom. Today, students at my school bring in pies and, along with the many pi day activities taking place in individual classrooms, over 1,000 students celebrate by eating pie at lunchtime. PTA volunteers usually help to organize and distribute the pies.
Every day when my students enter the classroom, they have a set of 5 warm-up problems awaiting them. The first 5-10 minutes of each class period are spent working on these problems, checking them, and getting some mini-lessons in along the way.
I love project based learning! When I started teaching over 25 years ago most of the curriculum that I was given consisted of flipping to the next two-pages in the textbook and working the problems that I selected. Not satisfied with this approach to teaching math, I was soon on the hunt for powerful math activities and projects that would infuse life into my math classroom. More on that quest in a moment.
