Showing posts with label TwitterChats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TwitterChats. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Thursday, November 13, 2014
NaBloPoMo #11 Twitter Chats
One of my favorite forms of professional development are Twitter Chats. I've mentioned them before. The online chats are teacher driven, just-in-time information, and invigorating!
This week on Monday, Algebra teachers joined online for #alg2chat! We meet every other week right now. We had been on a hiatus, and returning this past Monday was awesome! We talked most about our current curriculum and ideas for engaging students in the work. This past week using videos in class and for tutorial support was a big topic! How do you use videos in your work? Do you make them yourself? Do you use a particular series online? How does that work for your students?
Last night, #eduread was hopping! We decided to step away from reading a single article a week to tackling Marzano's book, The Highly Engaged Classroom. Last night was Chapter 1 so there is plenty of time for you to join in! My take-aways from our discussion last night include this tweet/retweet via @druinok ... "Best way to learn is to DO." "We move to restart our brains." "The person talking is thinking!" I'm writing these short statements on chart paper for our classroom this morning!
In this first session, I learned that engagement is different from being attentive. Attention is about emotions and energy. Negative emotions and low energy prevent learning from getting into working memory. Engagement on the other hand is about relevance and a sense of efficacy. If students don't believe the information is necessary or if they think they can't do the work, their brains will reject the learning - and the information will not stay in working memory long enough to make a difference. Marzano uses these four questions ...
Last night, #eduread was hopping! We decided to step away from reading a single article a week to tackling Marzano's book, The Highly Engaged Classroom. Last night was Chapter 1 so there is plenty of time for you to join in! My take-aways from our discussion last night include this tweet/retweet via @druinok ... "Best way to learn is to DO." "We move to restart our brains." "The person talking is thinking!" I'm writing these short statements on chart paper for our classroom this morning!
In this first session, I learned that engagement is different from being attentive. Attention is about emotions and energy. Negative emotions and low energy prevent learning from getting into working memory. Engagement on the other hand is about relevance and a sense of efficacy. If students don't believe the information is necessary or if they think they can't do the work, their brains will reject the learning - and the information will not stay in working memory long enough to make a difference. Marzano uses these four questions ...
- How do I feel?
- Am I interested?
- Is this important?
- Can I do this?
I want to find a way to teach these questions to students ... it's important that they understand how their brain works!
This has been an amazing week for professional development, starting with the Google Lesson Plan Jam, and then the Twitter Chats! My brain is full to overflowing! My next task is to apply this good stuff to my classroom! And then to share out!
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
#70Days What the Twordle says!
Just for fun ... my Twitter Wordle ... minus the Twitter handles!
In this picture you notice that one of the things I value on Twitter are the "chats!" #EduRead, #Alg2Chat, and #TxEduChat are on my calendar! I learn so much from listening, reading, participating! I encourage you to at least lurk on chats until you find ones that are a good fit for you. You can find a list of math chats HERE!
By the way, "ConicsFun" was the hashtag for my students' unit on conics! They did a great job with that!
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
#70Days The Myth of Learning Styles and #EduRead
#EduRead returns tomorrow evening! YEA!
The topic of discussion is this article on The Myth of Learning Styles. It was only in the last year that I began seeing online that the idea of learning styles had been debunked.
Obviously students have preferences - some like physical activity more than they like to read. And so if you organize an learning activity that involved movement, they get excited. The readers on the other hand may not find the physical activity particularly engaging. Students have preferences for the type of activity they engage in. This past year I had a few students who loved to draw and color. They loved any activity in which they could doodle. Other students asked - can we just answer the question without drawing???
Knowing our students well is key. We need to know if they have the background knowledge or vocabulary to support learning new concepts. Do they have the prerequisite skills? What are students' interests and how can I relate the content to their interests? All of these are valuable to designing learning activities that will engage students.
We also know that the brain likes it when we use all of our senses. Any time you can use movement, music, and pictures with text the information is more likely to find connections in our brains - hooks on which to connect and grow. Our brains like novelty and variety - so when we change up routines, move away from the standard textbook/workbook exercises, students are likely to be more engaged and learn more readily.
The authors of this article asked this question ... "Instead of asking whether we engaged the right sense (or learning mode), we should be asking, what did the students think about while they were in class?" I assert that if students are actively conversing about math then you will know what they were thinking about. If they are passive and quiet - you won't have a clue.
Last, the authors said, "We seek only to emphasize that attention to learning styles, for which evidence has not been found, may lead educators to neglect research on learning for which there is solid scientific support."
There are a number of lists of research-based instructional strategies - Marzano published 22 in this article and Rosenshine outlines 17 in his article.
What strategies do you use most often? Why those particular strategies?
The topic of discussion is this article on The Myth of Learning Styles. It was only in the last year that I began seeing online that the idea of learning styles had been debunked.
Obviously students have preferences - some like physical activity more than they like to read. And so if you organize an learning activity that involved movement, they get excited. The readers on the other hand may not find the physical activity particularly engaging. Students have preferences for the type of activity they engage in. This past year I had a few students who loved to draw and color. They loved any activity in which they could doodle. Other students asked - can we just answer the question without drawing???
Knowing our students well is key. We need to know if they have the background knowledge or vocabulary to support learning new concepts. Do they have the prerequisite skills? What are students' interests and how can I relate the content to their interests? All of these are valuable to designing learning activities that will engage students.
We also know that the brain likes it when we use all of our senses. Any time you can use movement, music, and pictures with text the information is more likely to find connections in our brains - hooks on which to connect and grow. Our brains like novelty and variety - so when we change up routines, move away from the standard textbook/workbook exercises, students are likely to be more engaged and learn more readily.
The authors of this article asked this question ... "Instead of asking whether we engaged the right sense (or learning mode), we should be asking, what did the students think about while they were in class?" I assert that if students are actively conversing about math then you will know what they were thinking about. If they are passive and quiet - you won't have a clue.
Last, the authors said, "We seek only to emphasize that attention to learning styles, for which evidence has not been found, may lead educators to neglect research on learning for which there is solid scientific support."
There are a number of lists of research-based instructional strategies - Marzano published 22 in this article and Rosenshine outlines 17 in his article.
What strategies do you use most often? Why those particular strategies?
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
#70Days - Constructive Struggle on #EduRead!
27/70
It's Wednesday! At 8 pm Central Time join us for #EduRead on Twitter!
Tonight we are discussing an article from the book entitled, “Faster isn’t Smarter: Messages about math, teaching, and learning in the 21st century.” This essay is about “constructive struggling!” If you like this essay, check out these others posted on the Math Solutions website!
The author, Cathy Seeley, states in her introduction,
“I began to wonder whether our compassion for students and our desire for all students to succeed might in fact be disadvantaging them.”
And from that point I was hooked! Seeley agrees that we cannot just copy the models of other countries, but we definitely spoon-feed our students too much. We tend to remove the complexity from problems in an effort to make math less frustrating for our students.
A look at those American classrooms where teachers and students invite complexity shows that the kind of mathematics problems students can really sink their teeth into (and consequently might struggle with) are often more interesting and engaging than the problems we have traditionally provided in math classrooms. It turns out that offering students a chance to struggle may go hand in hand may go hand in hand with motivating them, if we do it right.
Here’s my dissection of constructive struggle vs pointless frustration:
The trick seems to be to find just the right balance so that the struggle that students experience is constructive, instructive and not frustrating.
Seeley says, “If we do our job well and make students think just a little harder, we can prepare them to take on some of the most difficult problems we face today as well as the unknown problems we are likely to face tomorrow.”
So the big questions are … how can you determine the right amount of frustration for any given student on any given day … and how long do you let students wrestle with a question before increasing the help that you give?
One strategy I plan to use are the "stoplight" cups - red, green, yellow. You can read about them in @druinok's blog on formative assessment.
I also want to add a reflection questionnaire to go with each test. I realize this will be after the fact. But I am hoping that as the year progresses this feedback will help me know my students better and help them to know themselves better as well. These are the questions I'm thinking about asking:
1. How much of the homework did you do in this unit? (most, some, little, none)
2. Did you complete the study guide for the test? (most, some, little, none)
3. How would you rate this test? (challenging, reasonably difficult, average, quite easy)
4. What question was the most challenging for you?
5. What question do you think I should have asked on this test but didn't?
I'm looking forward to our chat, #EduRead!
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
#EduRead on Wednesdays! Hey TODAY is Wednesday!
OK ... so I'm excited to participate in #EduRead tonight. I learn something every time I participate!
#EduRead is a chat about an professional article ... each week a different one. Tonight's article is Creating a Differentiated Math Classroom.
The premise of the article is that students tend to have math learning styles. These are not your typical learning styles like visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc. Instead these are more similar to personality styles as found in Myers-Briggs analyses.
The authors suggest the four learning styles are mastery, understanding, interpersonal, and self expressive. I was curious about these so I googled math learning styles and found this chart:
The article we are discussing tonight suggests that as math teachers we need to plan units of instruction that incorporate multiple styles ... not every lesson ... but within every unit.
The one thought I hope we can explore tonight is the connection between these styles and instructional strategies. The authors of our article illustrate, for example, that identifying similarities and differences (compare/contrast) stimulates an Understanding style of thought. Graphic organizers may help students with a preference for Mastery.
Join us tonight, on Twitter, #EduRead, at 8 pm central time!
#EduRead is a chat about an professional article ... each week a different one. Tonight's article is Creating a Differentiated Math Classroom.
The premise of the article is that students tend to have math learning styles. These are not your typical learning styles like visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc. Instead these are more similar to personality styles as found in Myers-Briggs analyses.
The authors suggest the four learning styles are mastery, understanding, interpersonal, and self expressive. I was curious about these so I googled math learning styles and found this chart:
The one thought I hope we can explore tonight is the connection between these styles and instructional strategies. The authors of our article illustrate, for example, that identifying similarities and differences (compare/contrast) stimulates an Understanding style of thought. Graphic organizers may help students with a preference for Mastery.
Join us tonight, on Twitter, #EduRead, at 8 pm central time!
Thursday, June 12, 2014
#70Days Students Asking Questions!
Day 7
Devotional thought from Practice Resurrection: If we calculate the nature of the world by what we can manage or explain, we end up living in a very small world.
This is the context in which Peterson begins his exposition of Ephesians 1:3 - 14. In the Greek Ephesians 1:3 - 14 is one long sentence, about 200 words, and noted as "one of the most splendidly Jewish passages of praise and prayer in the New Testament ... a prayer of blessing to the one God for his mighty acts in creation and redemption."
Today I am meditating on Peterson's paraphrase of the first few verses of this "song of praise" ... How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. (from The Message, Eph. 1:3 - 6)
Devotional thought from Practice Resurrection: If we calculate the nature of the world by what we can manage or explain, we end up living in a very small world.
This is the context in which Peterson begins his exposition of Ephesians 1:3 - 14. In the Greek Ephesians 1:3 - 14 is one long sentence, about 200 words, and noted as "one of the most splendidly Jewish passages of praise and prayer in the New Testament ... a prayer of blessing to the one God for his mighty acts in creation and redemption."
Today I am meditating on Peterson's paraphrase of the first few verses of this "song of praise" ... How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. (from The Message, Eph. 1:3 - 6)
This morning I have been re-reading the chat we had last night about getting students to ask questions. Here is a LINK to the article that we read. And here is a COPY of our chat!
Last year, on day 1, we started with our first "I Notice, I Wonder" activity. I had made a chart of the seven functions we would study. Students wrote down their noticing and wondering. You can read about the activity HERE.
This year I am thinking about extending that activity into asking questions. The chart could be my QFocus. Students could work in small groups around large whiteboards. That way we can easily share our thoughts. I envision this activity occurring on Day 2 of our school year - when we are introducing the parent functions. It will be interesting to see what questions students develop and how we can apply their questions in our unit. One of the ideas discussed last night in our chat was inviting students to choose a question or two to answer for homework. That way students have ownership - of the questions and the homework. Hopefully that will be a win-win for them! I'm wondering also if I can include one or more of their own questions on our assessments during the unit of study!
Just now I was thinking about how we could hang our charts around the room - the noticing, wondering, questions ... but if we use the group whiteboards it's harder to save their work. Yes - I do take pictures but printing those out chart size isn't an option for me. We need to capture a summary of our work on "anchor charts" that we can refer to throughout the unit!
Before the summer is over, I plan to study more about students asking questions. At Right Question Institute (Twitter #QFT) there are free resources. My reading/thinking/planning pile is growing!
Last ... join us in our Twitter Chats ... we read one article a week and discuss them at 8 pm central time on Wednesday evenings! See Read Chat Reflect Learn and #EduRead on Twitter!
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
#70Days: Getting reading for #EduRead!
Devotional phrase today from Peterson's Practice Resurrection: " The diversity of gifts adds up to a unity of function." (I happen to love the mathematical word choices!)
"Each Christian participates in his or her own specific way in the context and conditions of his or her own life circumstances, but none of us do it on our own or under our own power."
We have been gifted to do the work and doing the work leads to maturity ... ours and those in our sphere of influence.
"But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. So Christ himself gave ... to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:7-13)
Then I saw this tweet this morning and I couldn't help but relate it to my devotional time ... in giving gifts to His people Christ sets us up to be in positions to succeed! And we are grateful!
I can only imagine the overflowing warmth this teacher must have felt from this student's high praise!
Today is Wednesday - the day for on of my favorite Tweet Chats ... #EduRead. Tonight we are discussing an article from the Harvard Education Letter, Volume 27, Number 5, published September/October 2011. The title is "Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions." I'm interested in this chat because I see too many bright, energetic students waiting to be spoonfed instead of pursuing their own curiosities in math!
I'm sharing my notes and questions from the article ...
This is my experience as well:
These are significant outcomes:
Looking forward to our discussion tonight ... #EduRead at 8 pm. Also check out the Read, Chat, Reflect blog! Share an article or two that we need to discuss this summer!
.
Time now for a bit of list making ... we leave for a week at the beach on Saturday. I am sure I have some "stuff" to do!
"Each Christian participates in his or her own specific way in the context and conditions of his or her own life circumstances, but none of us do it on our own or under our own power."
We have been gifted to do the work and doing the work leads to maturity ... ours and those in our sphere of influence.
"But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. So Christ himself gave ... to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:7-13)
Then I saw this tweet this morning and I couldn't help but relate it to my devotional time ... in giving gifts to His people Christ sets us up to be in positions to succeed! And we are grateful!
I can only imagine the overflowing warmth this teacher must have felt from this student's high praise!
Today is Wednesday - the day for on of my favorite Tweet Chats ... #EduRead. Tonight we are discussing an article from the Harvard Education Letter, Volume 27, Number 5, published September/October 2011. The title is "Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions." I'm interested in this chat because I see too many bright, energetic students waiting to be spoonfed instead of pursuing their own curiosities in math!
I'm sharing my notes and questions from the article ...
This is my experience as well:
- Or, as one teacher put it: “I would often ask my students, ‘Do you have any questions,’ but, of course, I didn’t get much back from them.”
These are significant outcomes:
- In the classroom, teachers have seen how the same process manages to develop students’ divergent (brainstorming), convergent (categorizing and prioritizing), and metacognitive (reflective) thinking abilities in a very short period of time.
- When teachers deploy the QFT in their classes, they notice three important changes in classroom culture and practices. Teachers tell us that using the QFT consistently increases participation in group and peer learning processes, improves classroom management, and enhances their efforts to address inequities in education.
- Teachers can use the QFT at different points: to introduce students to a new unit, to assess students’ knowledge to see what they need to understand better, and even to conclude a unit to see how students can, with new knowledge, set a fresh learning agenda for themselves.
- How does this idea fit with other routines I already use in your classroom? For example, I used “I notice; I wonder" fairly consistently in the fall ... then let that practice slip away. How might I strengthen the process?
- What might work well as a QFocus in my Algebra 2 classes?
Looking forward to our discussion tonight ... #EduRead at 8 pm. Also check out the Read, Chat, Reflect blog! Share an article or two that we need to discuss this summer!
.
Time now for a bit of list making ... we leave for a week at the beach on Saturday. I am sure I have some "stuff" to do!
Monday, June 9, 2014
Twitter convo --> #mathread --> #made4math!!
OK, so I didn't sleep well last night ... I think I was tweeting in my sleep!
There was this great conversation on Twitter last night. It started with a simple question about a particular math book and the need for higher algebra 1 achievement. It evolved into a discussion about bellringers, and the next thing we know we are talking about reading in math class. Here is a copy of our conversation!
Out of that conversation came this idea to collect articles, essays, stories, books even that we use in our classroom. Yes, reading activities in math! My #made4math contribution is the product of teamwork on Twitter ... thanks to @pamjwilson, @druinok, and @mathequalslove!
I find this whole discussion particularly interesting since one of the goals I wrote on my end of year evaluation was to use more reading passages in my Algebra 2 classes. We just began working with AVID strategies this past year and had a emphasis on writing. I used Math Munch for explorations in math and had students write short reflections in Edmodo. That worked well. Late in the year I asked them to read an essay on conics as a preview to our unit and tweet interesting ideas (#conicsfun) that they learned. That activity seemed to help them make connections between our work and real-world applications. (And of course, conics is an easy topic for connections!) It was at that point that I realized I needed more reading passages!
So here we are ... it's time for all math teachers to share! What reading passages, essays, news articles, stories, or books do you use in your classroom? Would you fill in the form? You'll have access to all the results! Our Form: #mathread!
Thank you!
There was this great conversation on Twitter last night. It started with a simple question about a particular math book and the need for higher algebra 1 achievement. It evolved into a discussion about bellringers, and the next thing we know we are talking about reading in math class. Here is a copy of our conversation!
Out of that conversation came this idea to collect articles, essays, stories, books even that we use in our classroom. Yes, reading activities in math! My #made4math contribution is the product of teamwork on Twitter ... thanks to @pamjwilson, @druinok, and @mathequalslove!
I find this whole discussion particularly interesting since one of the goals I wrote on my end of year evaluation was to use more reading passages in my Algebra 2 classes. We just began working with AVID strategies this past year and had a emphasis on writing. I used Math Munch for explorations in math and had students write short reflections in Edmodo. That worked well. Late in the year I asked them to read an essay on conics as a preview to our unit and tweet interesting ideas (#conicsfun) that they learned. That activity seemed to help them make connections between our work and real-world applications. (And of course, conics is an easy topic for connections!) It was at that point that I realized I needed more reading passages!
So here we are ... it's time for all math teachers to share! What reading passages, essays, news articles, stories, or books do you use in your classroom? Would you fill in the form? You'll have access to all the results! Our Form: #mathread!
Thank you!
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Read Chat Reflect ... Exit slips
I'm looking forward to our chat on Wednesday night #EduRead, because I find exit slips difficult to do. In fact, I find any routine difficult to do routinely! My warm-ups vary greatly, my conclusions vary greatly ... I feel like I'm missing something!
So ... read this article and then join in the conversation! I hope to learn how you budget time and make exit slips a priority. The article itself gives four great reasons or purposes for them.
After re-reading today, and with planning Twitter into our last unit ... I'm wondering if I can make tweeting an exit strategy!?!
So ... read this article and then join in the conversation! I hope to learn how you budget time and make exit slips a priority. The article itself gives four great reasons or purposes for them.
After re-reading today, and with planning Twitter into our last unit ... I'm wondering if I can make tweeting an exit strategy!?!
Monday, April 7, 2014
Twitter Chats - getting the hang of them!
Last night it was #TXEduChat ...
Tonight it was #Alg2Chat ...
On April 23, #EduRead is coming ...
First I found the chats overwhelming.
Fast scrolling text, words I wanted to read but couldn't quite catch ...
Then just being a novice at Twitter ...
Figuring out which icon responded, which one retweeted, which one favorited ...
Next wanting to jump in ...
But feeling intimidated by such engaged professionals ...
Not sure if my thoughts are outdated ...
And then it came together ...
I said something ... someone favorited it, retweeted it, commented back ...
I was on my way ...
Now I want evenings free for the chats ...
How can I accomplish that!?!
A benefit of the chats is hearing what others are doing in their math classes.
As others talk about their curriculum, I am realizing that I like our Algebra 2 curriculum more and more. While I think it's fast and somewhat crowded, it has a certain rhyme/reason to it. And it's making sense to me ... and hopefully to our students.
I'm learning what technology tools others are using ... and feeling validated ... and challenged to explore more!
Folks are discussing student engagement, growth mindset, and how these apply to the classroom. How to make them happen. Collaboration, Creativity were recent topics ... great thought provoking discussion!
So now to share with my colleagues in the brick and mortar building ... there is a world of engaging, purposeful conversation in our profession ... come join me!
Tonight it was #Alg2Chat ...
On April 23, #EduRead is coming ...
First I found the chats overwhelming.
Fast scrolling text, words I wanted to read but couldn't quite catch ...
Then just being a novice at Twitter ...
Figuring out which icon responded, which one retweeted, which one favorited ...
Next wanting to jump in ...
But feeling intimidated by such engaged professionals ...
Not sure if my thoughts are outdated ...
And then it came together ...
I said something ... someone favorited it, retweeted it, commented back ...
I was on my way ...
Now I want evenings free for the chats ...
How can I accomplish that!?!
A benefit of the chats is hearing what others are doing in their math classes.
As others talk about their curriculum, I am realizing that I like our Algebra 2 curriculum more and more. While I think it's fast and somewhat crowded, it has a certain rhyme/reason to it. And it's making sense to me ... and hopefully to our students.
I'm learning what technology tools others are using ... and feeling validated ... and challenged to explore more!
Folks are discussing student engagement, growth mindset, and how these apply to the classroom. How to make them happen. Collaboration, Creativity were recent topics ... great thought provoking discussion!
So now to share with my colleagues in the brick and mortar building ... there is a world of engaging, purposeful conversation in our profession ... come join me!
Friday, October 18, 2013
Twitter me this: how do you get anything done?
I notice ...
- Streams of tweets flow daily, no hourly!
- Some folks in MTBoS tweet a LOT!
- Tweets range from cute/funny comments to serious professional development.
- Tweets remind me of phone conversations (you know - when we used to call folks to talk about our work!)
- I get excited when someone responds, favorites or retweets my tweets!
- I often want to check my Tweet Deck during the school day! Yikes!
- I am easily overwhelmed with so much data especially on the #chat night!
- I find it difficult to make my thoughts fit in 140 characters!
I wonder ...
- How folks have so much time for tweeting?
- How teachers have time for family, hobbies, LIFE, while tweeting, blogging math all of the time?
I can feel it ... tweeting is addictive! I want to participate more but am holding back. I'm holding back partly because I am new ... prefer to lurk before jumping in. Need to test the waters. I'm holding back because I love to write, love to communicate online, and I don't need to spend anymore time at those activities.
Yes, I want to be the best math teacher I can be!!
I want to read everything written about teaching math and absorb it all and redo all my lesson plans!
I also want to put the technology away, read a good book, take a walk, enjoy the sights and sounds ... without wondering how I could apply it to a math lesson!
If you’re new to Twitter, what is something that has surprised you about it? How compelling, how in the moment, how perfect it is for teachers who share passion for teaching, for math, to communicate - in real time, just in time ...
Guess I'll keep at it a while longer ...
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