Tehya Baxter EDS 351A: Elementary Math Methods Professors Caren Holtzman & Rusty Bresser November 5, 2012

California Math Council Conference Reflection My experience at the conference really reinforced my belief that I have made the right decision to take part in UCSDs teaching credential program. I found that every presenter with whom I most connected was reiterating ideas about both teaching math and teaching children in general that I had heard from professors in the department at EDS and that I had strongly believed in before I began taking EDS courses. Hearing these ideas again off campus made me realize how important they are to me personally, not just because I have heard them frequently over the last five months. The best presentation I went to was entitled Making the Common Standards Accessible to English Learners, lectured by Elmano Costa. He taught an entire math lesson in Portuguese, modeling how to make content comprehensible to students who do not speak the same language as their teacher. Costas lesson utilized much of Krashens Comprehensible Input theory, most importantly the repetition of vocabulary and contextualization with real objects. This allowed the class to see and connect meaningless words with the objects and concepts they represented. Costa also allowed small group discussions to take place in the students native language. This allowed students to jump into the math without having a language barrier; whole class discussion then took place in the target language after students had had a chance to think through their ideas and incorporate the ideas of

their peers in their native language. As Bresser described, When facilitating productive talk during mathematics class, teachers can help ensure that emergent English speakers fully participate by structuring discussions in ways that provide access to students with varying linguistic expertise (2003, pg. 100). Providing that space for discussion in the native language allows students to really explore the math concepts being discussed, allowing them to both think through their ideas out loud and hear from their peers, solidifying their understanding before practicing articulating it in the target language during a whole class discussion. I really loved Costas approach to education: If kids arent learning, its the teachers fault for not finding a way to connect to them. As much as some teachers complain about the lack of knowledge students entered their classroom with, or how difficult it is to communicate with students who speak a language the teacher does not speak, or how challenging it is to include a student with special needs, at the end of the day, it is the teachers responsibility to teach every child in their class. I strongly agree with this sentiment: regardless of the challenging history a repeatedly low-performing student brings with them into the classroom, the student cannot be blamed for their situation and achievement. It is the teachers responsibility to help that child reach their potential, not to blame them for their lack of success. I also really liked Costas insistence that, I dont care how much you cover, I care how much kids learn. So many districts set a pacing that pushes for speed, rather than accuracy, striving to cover as much ground as possible

regardless of how much knowledge is actually being retained. The Common Cores focus on narrowing the list of standards to a more specific and efficient list builds a strong foundation in key skills such as number sense that enable a more in-depth study of more complex math in later years thanks to the depth with which topics are covered initially. Discussion, communication, and justification are skills often disregarded in a traditional math class where one method and one answer are seen as sufficient. However, real mathematicians have a rich understanding of how to manipulate numbers. The role of the teacher in these types of classrooms becomes not lecturer, but facilitator, questioning children to justify and explain their reasoning. When teachers ask effective questions, they prompt students to articulate their various solution strategies, which can create a cross-pollination of ideas (Bresser, 2003, pg. 95). Covering less but learning more sets the stage for a richer and more developed math knowledge over a lifetime of learning.