Juda has been part of the I^2 STEM summer institute at UW-Platteville the past 2 years; its goal is to have more STEM in schools which couples extremely well for my desire for large hands-on projects. So I wanted to post about the Measurement Olympics I ran in my Intro to Engineering Class this semester and encourage other teachers to use it (motivation came from the institute and our school's Olympic theme this year).
Instead of homework I am trying to issue challenges this year. I am pushing students to be persistent and solve difficult problems - really trying to focus on Habits of Mind.
I created a short youtube video about the events (so that my judges could know see first hand what the students were doing - also here is a link to the materials)
It went great. The students were divided into teams and estimate, calculated and worked hard on solving these problems - it ended with them presenting their results to panel of judges. It went well and taught a lot of the real world skills we want in students. Plus first prize was cool (see facebook post).....
Always finding the best way to teach math is an unending battle. Finding ways for the students to truly discover high level math concepts is a difficult endeavor.
This past summer I was lucky enough to be part of a grant with UW-Platteville on STEM (along with 4 kick-butt co-workers). We have done a number of things as a team to help make our school a better problem solving place. One thing from the summer course was to do a STEM assignment in one of our classes - tape it, keep student data and reflect upon it. I figured why not post it here too.
My project was to use ziggurats to help drive summation understanding. It is a project I took directly from the summer grant. And I am thankful that I was able to have the materials given to me versus me having to create the materials. Making projects during the school year itself is a tough mission; that is why getting projects during the summer is so important.
So the project had plane views of different ziggurats (pyramids) which I combined with set of blocks where I wanted the students to calculate the number of blocks in 7 layers of zigguarat, but more importantly to create a summation that would represent the total too.
There were three designs, it was a challenge for the students. Each group quickly calculated the number of blocks in the ziggurat, but to turn that into a summation proved more challenging. Especially when the summation had to have an odd number in the sequence! (It went 1 squared, 3 squared, 5 squared, and so on).
I have taught Pre-Calculus for a decade and this was the first time where I truly saw the "a-ha" moment with all my students working on summations. And unsurprisingly it is the first time I have taught summations any way besides lecture and practice. So why hadn't I done it? Plain and simple - just time.
Finding and creating projects is time consuming, and I just had not had it before this grant - that is why professional development like this and time in our district is so important. It is important for us to remember and ask for the time, without making and taking time we end up in a routine. And that routine will rarely lead to improved teaching. And small successes are the stepping stones to larger things.
Our school's larger thing now is our commitment to have all our students get a hand-on STEM experience - we do that by using homeroom time working outside of a class and a grade. We were able to do this through a grant and community support and the results are looking great (STEM progress video). It all starts with small steps - like the STEM class at UW-Platteville.
And while time is important, activities come from being fearless also. I remind myself that sometimes I just need to make the time to try something new. I need to say if it does not work it is okay, try, revise. I just need to make finding great learning opportunities a priority.
I have been lucky to be part of a STEM grant at UW-Platteville the last couple of days (STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) - we, the participants, have had the opportunity to do some STEM projects, reflecting on practices and working with a great group of dedicated excited educators.
And the big thing for me - with 2 days out of 8 done is a new mantra to repeat - that STEM has M (math) in the STE part too. Meaning that the STE part can have a huge impact on my students - a bigger impact in their ability to problem solve, their ability to be ready for the world versus just doing M.
So a question discussed was: are you a STEM teacher? The question followed the story of a 5th grade teacher using STEM to teach Math (and her need to teach parents that M is STE). And my answer today is I am a math teacher who has large STEM projects. I integrate STEM into math as I can but I rely on the projects I assign to do STEM things (and also the math practices). For me the next step is continuously improving my lessons to include more STE - to teach more math concepts.
The practices we want are there in the STE part and any math room will always have M - so a message to myself : keep pushing the STE part. Keep finding the projects, keep making the math learning happening through discovery. Keep using a holistic approach and make each class just a little bit better (continuous improvement).
And
A day without math is like a day without sunshine.
is still true (love that phrase)!! Now we know that STE portion is pure sunshine too.
Read an interesting article from my boss today - UW System wants to reduce remedial math classes- this article fits right into philosophy about our jobs as high school math educators -- which is we must prepare our graduates for college and career with respect to math.
Thus I was excited to read that UW schools plan to make data available on its incoming students math readiness - with the (correct) idea that if HS teachers know the deficits they can correct going forward. And all the information we can get helps us as educators, info is the key to decisions.
Right now I have to track my students myself - ask (harass) how they placed, how their first math course went etc. Pretty easy when you are a small school teacher in a rural community where everybody knows everybody - but pretty hard otherwise I am guessing.
But UW System also plans to make the data public saying "That number (of remedial students) has prompted new legislation that would require the UW Board of Regents to disclose where students taking remedial math classes went to high school."
And perhaps I am reading this wrong but it seems to imply that the numbers would be public immediately - and I wonder how that will effect teachers.. If it will push them to teach to the test. If the public shaming is the motivating factor - to improve? to make better math students?
Or is this simply a push to provide cover for the UW system schools saying - it is not our fault that students don't graduate because of math.
I do believe it is on me to make sure my Algebra 2 students finish that course capable of testing into college Algebra thus not being a remedial math casualty. And with the new rule you will soon see my results.....
