Welcome to the Master Teachers of Maine (MTM) Mathematics blog site! This blog is intended as a forum of support for teachers and administrators registered as members of the MTM Program, an intensive training project funded by the Maine Dept of Education, in collaboration with "I Get It!" Math. This partnership represents an initiative to significantly raise mathematical competency in Maine by supporting teacher growth through robust learning communities and training efforts.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Link to Rita's algebra article
Here is the link to the article Rita introduced us to on algebra in the early years. Copy and paste the following into your browser to access it.
Cynthia, the article is on the naeyc site. If you use the search function on your browser for [naeyc beyond the journal] it should bring you to a list of archived articles from naeyc - there are some terrific articles there. Use the search function again on that page to type [algebra]. That will bring up another list - the article in question is the first one on that list. I also sent you a PDF of the article by email. Please let me know if you still need help. Happy reading!
I guess I don't blog enough, I can never remember my password! I thought both articles were interesting and confirmed so much that we have been discussing and learning about math this year with Maggie! I can really relate to the push for higher math courses for students, but it started in the 3rd grade for one of my daughters when a math assessment determined that she would not be chosen for the "high math" enrichment class. Let's assess for those students in the early grades who are not getting it and start an enrichment class for them. I am now an ed tech working in the RTI initiative, which seems to be headed in the right direction. How can we(teachers, ed techs and math coaches)best assess our students for those fundamental mathematical concepts early on so that they will all be ready for those algebra classes?
Cynthia, just change the part of the url that Maggie gave from "bti" to "btj" and it should work.
I found this article to have some great suggestions for working with the younger set.
I did a little research and discovered that the author has also published a book called Family Math Night: Math Standards in Action. It is targeted for Pre-K through 5th grade. She has another version for middle school. Does anyone have either of them? I'm thinking of buying the first one on Amazon.com.
Sorry I'm not underlining the titles but I hit something and lost my toolbar. So much for my technical skills...
Susie, it's good to hear teachers placing value on algebraic thinking in the early years. I agree that it's critical to pick up, very early on, those kids who don't appear to be 'getting it'. Bravo to you and your team for paying attention to this critical component in your kids'math development! The only caution I would offer here is we have to be careful that 'fixing it' doesn't exclude 'why it's broken in the first place'. Even in classrooms where best practice is evident there are kids who will still need intervention. But there are also a great number of kids who could avoid the intervention scene if they were exposed to mathematical experiences that allowed them access to make-sense ideas. That's all about the ideas we have been talking about in this group: investigating and discovering, using natural language, using symbols not as the focus of instruction but as a way to represent the ideas discovered in the instruction, doing/talking/representing... etc.
So you have posed the question... how best to assess. Can you share with us what progress you are making on this front? We can all benefit from what you are learning.
ONE MORE THING :) Keep blogging... we all need you!
6 comments:
I am very interested in reading this article but couldn't get it from that link...is there any other way to get it?
Cynthia, the article is on the naeyc site. If you use the search function on your browser for [naeyc beyond the journal] it should bring you to a list of archived articles from naeyc - there are some terrific articles there. Use the search function again on that page to type [algebra]. That will bring up another list - the article in question is the first one on that list. I also sent you a PDF of the article by email. Please let me know if you still need help. Happy reading!
I guess I don't blog enough, I can never remember my password! I thought both articles were interesting and confirmed so much that we have been discussing and learning about math this year with Maggie! I can really relate to the push for higher math courses for students, but it started in the 3rd grade for one of my daughters when a math assessment determined that she would not be chosen for the "high math" enrichment class. Let's assess for those students in the early grades who are not getting it and start an enrichment class for them. I am now an ed tech working in the RTI initiative, which seems to be headed in the right direction. How can we(teachers, ed techs and math coaches)best assess our students for those fundamental mathematical concepts early on so that they will all be ready for those algebra classes?
Cynthia, just change the part of the url that Maggie gave from "bti" to "btj" and it should work.
I found this article to have some great suggestions for working with the younger set.
I did a little research and discovered that the author has also published a book called Family Math Night: Math Standards in Action. It is targeted for Pre-K through 5th grade. She has another version for middle school. Does anyone have either of them? I'm thinking of buying the first one on Amazon.com.
Sorry I'm not underlining the titles but I hit something and lost my toolbar. So much for my technical skills...
Linda, I will order that book today. When it comes in, I'll write up a review on it and post it on the blog.
Susie, it's good to hear teachers placing value on algebraic thinking in the early years. I agree that it's critical to pick up, very early on, those kids who don't appear to be 'getting it'. Bravo to you and your team for paying attention to this critical component in your kids'math development! The only caution I would offer here is we have to be careful that 'fixing it' doesn't exclude 'why it's broken in the first place'. Even in classrooms where best practice is evident there are kids who will still need intervention. But there are also a great number of kids who could avoid the intervention scene if they were exposed to mathematical experiences that allowed them access to make-sense ideas. That's all about the ideas we have been talking about in this group: investigating and discovering, using natural language, using symbols not as the focus of instruction but as a way to represent the ideas discovered in the instruction, doing/talking/representing... etc.
So you have posed the question... how best to assess. Can you share with us what progress you are making on this front? We can all benefit from what you are learning.
ONE MORE THING :) Keep blogging... we all need you!
Post a Comment