Modeling Problems that Bring the Common Core to Life

Instructor: Maria Hernandez

Reflective Summary by Diana Tunnell
6/27/14 Review and Wrap-up
Our final class provided an opportunity to reflect on the activities we covered in the week and to tie up loose
ends with questions from the class. We completed evaluations on the workshop for Maria. We also had
discussion on what resources are available to continue our quest to provide great educational opportunities
for our students and development/recognition opportunities so that we can be better enabled to do that.
Below are highlights of that discussion.
Potential for sources of funding for classroom needs:
Although not extremely expensive, financial resources are needed to acquire the useful technologies we
worked with this week. Many schools are on a very tight spending limit. Donorschoose.org was a
recommended site to consider. Teachers create a post describing the item needed, what it would be used for,
and how it would be beneficial to the school community. Then anyone familiar with the site has the
opportunity to search through requests and may decide to fund them.
Research is validating the need for stronger math/science skills in our graduating students to meet projected
work force needs. To help support that cause recently there are more math/science partnership grants being
advertised that one can search for as well as National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants to review. These also
apply to funding for professional development.
Professional Development Opportunities:
National Board certification: National Board Certification became the most rigorous, coveted and respected
professional certification available in education. See http://www.nbpts.org/ for more information. In some
states National Board Certification does allow for a pay raise. The renewal period is every ten years.
There are lots of interesting and random professional development workshops available at no cost. One Maria
mentioned is an electric guitar building class (http://www.guitarbuilding.org/). Teachers spend a week at this
STEM workshop sponsored by the NSF and then return home with a kit to build an electric guitar with their
students.
Another opportunity I found appealing is the Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellows program. Selected
teachers receive a years salary, housing and a position to work with a federal agency like the DOE, NSF, NOAA,
etc for a year bringing current classroom experience into the education policy arena.
Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Two people from each state are
selected. The application period is every other year. https://www.paemst.org/




Conferences

A number of well-respected conferences occur both at a local, regional and national level every year. They are
great opportunities for professional development workshops and networking with other teachers.
Recommendations include:

-NCTM National Conference: Boston, April 2015
-TCM @NCSSM 1.5 days in January 2015
-NSF STEM conference (in St Louis last year)

We reviewed resources for Common Core standards.


We also discussed sequencing of the activities. Maria reminded us of the importance of motivating a topic with
an application. Data can be found or collected plentifully. Ask students what would we need to model for
particular questions they have on the topic. Make a list of mathematical topics that you teach and then plug in
some of the activities where they fit.
Little Nuggets: Give students each a piece of paper with a different data point (example ,number of trucks
produced in various countries). Tell them to get up and place themselves in a scale by order. When you have
hundreds to millions, one can see they cant fit to scale in the classroom. So now teach logarithms. Gail Burrill
gave a good NCTM talk on logs Michigan which may be useful to find for this activity.
ASSESSMENT
One of our goals as educators is to inspire a desire for success in mathematics. Assessment should be designed
to encourage progress toward that goal and not to provide a basis for minimum accomplishment needed. To
motivate commitment in learning, teachers do need to present a deliverable that students are responsible to
complete for any learning activity. Maria noted that there are various ways to assess and she referenced
material from Carmel Schettinos CWIC sessions that would apply nicely. We were encouraged to assess in
prose, graph, table form beyond standard problem- answer sets.
It is important for teachers to validate that part of the learning process is the struggle in knowledge making.
Kids are used to having a right or wrong answer in mathematics, but dont want to show you anything in
between. Encourage students to not throw away attempts and likened this to methodology taught in a
science lab. Think of science notebooks you document everything, dont cross things out, dont lose it, and
reflect on what went wrong.
Modeling classrooms have a new dynamic in comparison to traditional math classrooms. Group work skills
need to be taught and modeled. Teachers need to watch very closely in the group work activities and know
how to push those who are a bump on a log in an encouraging manner. Mike Shaughnessy (Teachers
Development Group -NCTM presentation) was referenced as a resource for creating classroom norms for
project based classrooms. The group shared examples of collaborative group positions used in their
classrooms such as facilitator, observer, presenter, and spy (someone with permission to wander and
collaborate with other groups).
A Sample Assessment (used by Maria)
Setting the stage/introduce problem
Show me the math
Assessment of model/conclusion
Maria also pointed out the need for students to self-assess. She uses homework cards to do this. Each student
has a homework card on which he/she self-assess each assignment with a scale of 1 (didnt attempt or do well
on at least 50%),2 (attempted most 80%and did well),or 3 (attempted all and did well 80+). This is included as
part of a participation grade.