How Did You Get That Answer?

First off, I continue each week to grow in my appreciation and love of the teaching profession.  I am inspired, humbled, motivated and encouraged by all of the teacher leaders who are in my life and those whom I read about and learn from online.  We live is such an amazing time in which knowledge, education and instruction are so readily available to us as educators.  I say educators present tense because we are already educators.  I have seen so much growth in myself and all of my classmates over the past 2 years and I just want to say keep up the hard work!  

This week I have been learning about NCPTS and breaking down part 1C and 1D for my week.  I also was able to spend a little time in the classroom and though I didn’t really do anything, I observed a lot.  Seeing those little people working diligently on their tasks, adhering very well to the class routine (behavior and expectations).  The students were really excited to see me, more so than the first two weeks, so I guess me being there is making a difference.  Once again, I believe they are  a great class to work with.  Also this week, we are looking at the Mathematical Standards and analyzing them.  I really think this is a great way to instill into students the importance of problem solving and critical thinking in all subjects and in life.  Here are the standards in a nutshell:

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others
4. Model with mathematics
5. Use appropriate tools strategically
6. Attend to precision
7. Look for and make use of structure
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

I know we all have to do some research on these this week, so I won’t bore you with details on every one of them.  I just thought I would talk about how I would like to use them and possibilities of a few of them.  

In this day and age of technology, information and Google answers (why is there not an app called that?) it is easy to just look up information or answers to things, but no critical thinking is involved necessarily.  Also, how do you know it is 100 percent correct?  That is why it is important for students to be able to connect with the content and come up with the reasoning.  For instance, when technology fails or they are limited on its use, students will have to figure out the best solution (2 and 3).  How do you fight to get the right answer?  Do you give up very easily or do you persevere? (1,2)  What does your work look like?  Is it correct?  Also, how do you fact check? (6, 4  Once you have come up with a solution, how do you make sure that is the best possible outcome? (8) or what tools would you use to solve the problem? (5).  These are just a few ways to look at the standards.  This could apply to research, writing, reading, math, science, etc…  I think this is a great way to look at these standards.  We can teach students about fractions, but if they are able to reason and look at it from different angles like visualizing something they recognize like a pizza and how it could be divided into slices, I feel they will be able to retain the information better.  Making the content relevant and meaningful have been key components in creating lesson plans.  That is because we should not teach ONLY for students to pass an EOG.  We should teach them how to do quality work, think about solutions, (the 4 C’s: collaborate, communicate, be creative and think critically.) This will help them in the workforce, but also life in general.  Students need to take all of the advantages we didn’t have 15-20 years ago and use them in a powerful way.

This relates to teaching standard 4: Teachers Facilitate Learning for Their Class.  What a great method to ingrain into or students’ minds and thought process.  As a teacher, we should always think of ways in which we can help students to advance their learning.  Especially those students who struggle at times with confidence or problem solving.  I would like to use this in all subjects because like I said previously, it is a very great tool to promote the higher level of reasoning that we want students to achieve.  Like Dr. Parker recommended, make copies for students to put in their notebooks, plaster it all over the classroom, take a small chunk of each day to review how to use the standards and what the reasoning is behind them.  Creating lessons and delivering content in a way that gets them to think is also a way to incorporate this approach to learning.  Is it the only way?  No, but it is a great way for sure!