I am looking forward to St Mary's M.Ed Spring Conference this April to hear and discuss the topics of Physical vs. Virtual Manipulatives, Cooperative Learning impacting student motivation and participation, Incorporating technology-based assessments, Flipped math classroom, and Implementing literacy strategies in math classes.
From the physical vs virtual manipulatives, there seems to he a high level of engagement of the students when they do have manipulatives to see and touch. Technology is becoming more prevalent in our society so the students are using more virtual manipulatives and the level of engagement seems to be higher. I hope to see how often do using the virtual manipulatives keeps the students interest as I relate it to my class. I hope to see which activities and manipulative other math teachers have used and what strategies have worked for them.
For the cooperative learning, know that the students are able be more active in class and build a stronger community. They are learning how to communicate in the academic language and to learn how to interact in the relationships of their peers. I would like to see how other teachers create different structured cooperative activities that are productive in the learning process for the students.
The technology-based assessments in the classroom is promoting how society is using technology in everyday life. Through different modes of using technology, we are building relationships in helping one another in learning how to use the technology given and it weeks the students more engaged and motivated in working towards understanding the material. With the different ways of using technology, it enhances the students learning because it keeps them interested by the variety of assessments that are given. I hope to learn how other teachers have used technology to enhanced their curriculum especially in terms of assessments to hopefully lead to project based learning.
The flipped classroom is a session where the notes of the lessons are taken outside of the classroom and the homework/practice is done in the classroom. By having the structure of the the flipped classroom for the math, there will be more time for the students to help one another and differentiate how each student learns. I hope to learn how does the student interact in the class with the different levels of abilities. Is there a more structured learning process for the students to follow in understanding the material.
Literacy in a math classroom is seeing if the student are learning the academic language of mathematics is helping the students retain more of the material than just going and doing examples. I see that the students are more verbal in their classroom and are retaining the material better. I hope to find ways for me to incorporate the terminology of mathematics in my classroom so that they are remembering the material better.
