A running list of great blogs that I have found. Click on the image to check them out yourself!
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I first ran into Marilyn Burns' work when looking for children's literature related to math topics. I was immediately attracted to her focus on bringing a balance between comprehension, number sense, and computational skills.
I love reading about her ideas for lesson plans (which are widely varied in grade and topic)--these are slipped in every so often into another blog post or into an article, but they're real gems when you find them. Here are a few that I ran across: - How to use children's books to teach math (with a lesson that she did with a group of 2nd graders) - A lesson in alphabetical probability (7th grade) - 3 lessons using children's books (1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade) For more from Marilyn Burns, see this list of the articles that she has written. |
I ran across a post about math being a "messy thinking subject"... a learning subject! She gave some great, practical pointers about making this happen.
Check out this excellent post on problem solving. Her line in the beginning about "the one doing the talking is the one doing the learning" was striking--some of the most helpful math classes that I have taken have involved me being able to verbally work through or defend my reasoning. She has a point... Also, this post had one great strategy for helping students explain their thinking/problem-solving strategy on paper (as opposed to just writing down the answer). I thought it was especially interesting that the connection was made between the skill of showing math reasoning on paper and the skill of explaining verbally how the problem was solved. Another post on helping struggling students (summarizing an article found here) - start with the concrete...numbers and symbols come only AFTER students can represent concretely and visually! This is concrete, representational, or abstract understanding...in other words. |
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I found that Matt Coaty's blog was full of ideas for an upper-EL or middle school math classroom. I liked that he had some quality technologies picked out that allowed for student-created presentations, but that he also featured hands-on work, such as his post on nets and surface area. An attractive part of this blog was the ideas for implementing authentic experiences with math (with thoughtful reflection interspersed--the title of this blog is fitting!).
I ran across this post about a probability project that offered some student choice, some ways to get creative juices flowing, and some of Matt's "notes to self" for the next time he uses a project like this. Interesting--he mentions using an app called Seesaw for students to create digital portfolios of their work...a communication tool for parents and teachers alike. It makes me wonder if it works... |
This blogger describes a "Recovering Traditionalist" as someone who was taught (and, thus, now teaches) math traditionally...but is trying to build conceptual knowledge instead of just memorizing procedures. That's me!
One unique aspect that I like is what this blogger calls TMWYK (Talking Math With Your Kid--borrowed from another blog with that same name). She documents "spur of the moment" math chats with her small children, such as when they noticed that she was running out of stamps...and she thought to ask them how they were grouping the stamps. These anecdotes, plus the videos on her YouTube channel, are a great resource for parents who are wondering what it would look like to feel comfortable talking about real-world math in everyday situations. When putting together my math tool kit, I found her post on rekenreks to be helpful in answering questions of mine (beginning with "what on Earth is a rekenrek?"). |
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This blog has some great ideas for lower-EL classrooms. Some activities and visual models that I have run across include the "Shake and Spill" game, or "Make 5 Go Fish" (this could probably be adapted for other digits up to 20 or so), or a description of a lesson using Thinking Blocks to solve word problems.
She has a lot to say about differentiation in the math classroom, a topic that is a bit intimidating to me, at this point. But she has some great ideas for how to have students personalize problems by using "their number" in their math facts practice. I also liked her idea of "You Write the Question." This is a great post on assessment (she stresses "remediating the skill" not the grade). |
This blog concerns mostly high school-level math, but I loved the thoughtful reflection that went along with the posts. A couple interesting posts I ran across:
An open-ended problem led to a great discussion on fractions--can you believe that it was a class of 9th graders! Project-based learning...version 3.0 (like I said, the most valuable part of this blog is the reflection on what worked, what didn't, and what can be changed the next time around!)This blog's name is very fitting--he does a lot of thoughtful reflection on the teaching and learning that happens in math classrooms. |
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I keep finding great ideas on this blog! It's endless!
In one of her most recent posts, this blogger referenced her use of formative assessment--one point she made was that an exit slip that involved solving a simple problem would give an insight into the strategies that a student is comfortable with. Some other formative assessment ideas: I especially liked her strategy of making ABCD cards, table tents, and a "parking lot" for lingering questions. This blog is also full of fun ideas! Check out these pompom poppers for working on number combinations! And look--someone who loves children's books as much as I do! This list of almost 100 children's books about various math topics is a compilation of her posts about using them in the classroom, so many include lesson plans, printable materials, etc. (i.e. awesome!) An occasional post is a book study--a critical look at some of the math literature that is out there. For example, here is a recent post about having "math talks" in the classroom. |
This Australian teacher-blogger has a lot of unique things to say. Here are a few...
Addressing the "why do we learn so many different strategies" question...with everything from his second graders' input to a golf analogy This post on "patterns that grow" reminded me a lot of the visual patterns site that we've worked with in class (find it in the algebraic thinking resources). Here he has his students building growing patterns with manipulatives (snap cubes and so on) to see if a number will fit into that pattern, and why. When beginning to talk about nets for 3D objects, he had his students take a look at the object, and draw what they thought the net looked like. Interesting results... How about a human graph, using all of the students in a school? |
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I was delighted to run across this blog. It has struck me before that mistakes are often more revealing of a student's thinking process than their right answers. This blog highlights that, and thus I think it might be a helpful resource to keep around. It highlights middle school and high school students' work, but the same principle could be applied to elementary classrooms.
This blog also opened my eyes a bit to the wide ranges of ways that students can interpret a problem--sometimes it was refreshing to read a post of a student's work, followed by the question: "what DO you say to them?" What happens when you get a brilliant problem-solving process that answers a question that you weren't asking...? A recent post that was excellent: looking at class sets to make connections and generalizations instead of singling out one student's mistakes. Insightful... |
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Again, a blog that is still mostly unexplored...but seems to have some great ideas and thoughtful reflection. I especially like the way that he opens most of his lessons: looking at a picture (or graph, or chart, etc.), he asks, "what do you notice? What do you wonder?" A great teaching practice, I think.
A great game called "Fill the Stairs"--great for number sense, ordering numbers, etc... Using strategies usually employed in reading to help students solve math problems... |
Jamie Forshey's blog includes a vast variety of technology resources (online and otherwise) that can be used in the classroom. I ran across this blog in another class, and it has already provided me with some neat tools to use. There are some math resources, especially in the links to her Diigo bookmarks (see these bookmarks that are just under "math"--there are a TON more in other topics!).
Talking Math With Your Kids is a great blog for math teachers (and parents) of the very young! Aimed at ages 1-9, especially, this blog is full of great ideas! Most blogs tag their posts by topic; this one tags it by "talk math with your __-year-old" instead (you can for posts by age group!).
An interesting post titled let the children play... I loved this "Math-On-A-Stick" post--a whole "carnival" of math activities. One word: woah... |
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Another blog...