Last week I had the opportunity to attend my first technology/education conference, and it was a really great time! Our class attended the MACUL Conference in Grand Rapids, MI, which was a nice way to get out of town for the day and learn about the up and coming technology tools that educators are using in their classrooms. During the day, we went to speaker sessions, the vendor fair, and out for a quick lunch.
One of the first presentations that I went to was about Pinterest, and its benefits in the classroom. I was really excited for this speaker, because I wrote my journal article about using Pinterest as a teaching tool, and I was hoping this speaker would introduce me to ideas that I hadn't thought of and new uses that would be great additions to my paper. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in this presentation. While it would have been useful for those who didn't know anything about Pinterest, it was not beneficial for current Pinterest users, in my opinion. It was more about how to get a Pinterest account, how to create boards, how to pin items, etc., which are all things that I am already familiar with. I think that it should have been listed as more of an "introduction to Pinterest" presentation instead of one that would be helpful to incorporating Pinterest into your classroom. Also, the speaker had some technical difficulties navigating through her Prezi presentation, and she forgot her Pinterest password at first! While it wasn't helpful to me to go to this session, I'm sure that it was beneficial to some people, and I hope that Pinterest continues to get promoted for use as a lesson planning tool.
The next session I went to, however, was amazing! I went to the lightening talk session, which was comprised of around 8 speakers who each gave 5 minutes talks. The speakers had great inspirational quotes that they shared, and they had stories of their own teaching that really boosted my morale about being in the classroom. One of the speakers gave a talk called "#StandardizeThat" where he talked about all the wonderful things that his students do that can never be standardized, such as respect, collaboration, kindness, and passion. It was a great reminder that, despite all of the standards that are pushed on us and making us feel overwhelmed, we need to focus on the great things that our students do that can't be measured by an exam. Another speaker talked about when he was in high school and didn't like school, but had one teacher who once told him that his essay was the best one she had read all year. He said that, regardless of the validity of this statement, it boosted his confidence and completely changed his outlook on school. He then went on to tell a story about how he made the same comment to a boy in his own class and talked about the changes he has seen in that student since then. It was a wonderful feeling to know that we hold that kind of power, and we can inspire our students with one small comment.
Another great part of the conference was the vendor area. I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of great people and see what companies are doing to create the latest technology for the classroom. I got to talk to the people who run Remind 101, which was really great, because I've started using that in my placement classroom. I also got to see lot of new smart boards, projectors, and online programs, which made me excited to have my own classroom one day and be able to (hopefully!) have all sorts of technology in my classroom. I also found a company who runs an online program where your students can take quizzes to see how well they understand the common core benchmarks and check their progress on reaching them. I am excited to use this in my placement classroom, and I hope the students are excited for it as well. Overall, I had a great experience at MACUL, and I plan to go next year as well. Maybe I will even think of a great topic and apply to give a lightening talk there!
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Responding to Edubloggers
This semester, I took some time to get acquainted with some of the Edubloggers (Education Bloggers) out on the web. One of the blogs I came across, through the suggestion of a friend, is Chuck Baker's blog, which can be found here. Mr. Baker is a high school teacher, and one of his classes is AP Statistics, so he does a lot of great posts on that subject. He also does posts on other things math and otherwise school related as well. One of his blog posts that really struck me was called "The Next Step: Re-wrapping Within Your Instructional Context." In this blog, Mr. Baker talks about the struggle between teaching students the conceptual meanings of different math topics vs. teaching them the traditional procedures and leaving the conceptual knowledge up to next year's teacher. He also poses the question of whether or not we always need to situate our lessons in regards to our students' prior knowledge and the school environment.
This question really hit home with me, because it is something I have thought about in my placement. In our education classes at school, our teachers constantly harp on the fact that we need to relate topics back to students' prior knowledge. They grade us on whether or not we explicitly talk about students' prior knowledge in our teaching videos in math methods. While I often believe that this is beneficial to the students, and makes a "new topic" seem less daunting to them when it involves things they have already learned, Mr. Baker makes me question whether this is the best way to go about our teaching. If my students' prior knowledge indicates that I should be teaching them step-by-step procedures instead of allowing them to participate in inquiry-based learning experiences, should I listen to that prior knowledge? Unfortunately, I have to say no. While we should play off of students' prior knowledge whenever possible, I feel like sometimes we are doing so at the expense of our students. All students deserve to be taught the conceptual nature of math instead of just the procedural knowledge. Students may never need to understand how to factor a polynomial in their future job, but I guarantee they will benefit from the inquiry and problem solving skills gained when we approach the topic from a conceptual level instead.
Another blog I came across, thanks to my classmate Vi, is Jose Vilson's blog which you can find here. Jose writes a lot of thought provoking blog posts, especially about race and equality in the classroom. One post that I found particularly interesting was titled "I'm the M.E.T.H.O.D. Man (Classroom Questioning Tiger Style. In this post, Jose talks about the fact that asking questions just because they start with "how" or "why" doesn't necessarily mean we are asking meaningful and beneficial questions. He also gives some of his tips and tricks about how to get students to think for themselves instead of allowing them to frustrate you into giving them the answer. One of his pieces of advice is to take a breath and keep calm when you see students not thinking. At my placement, I have experienced numerous occasions where students simply aren't doing the work. They wait for you to give them the answer, or they don't even care to write down any answer at all. This frustrates me to no end, because my mentor teacher, the other student teacher in the classroom, and I are all willing to help them, and they simply aren't interested in receiving that help. I believe that Jose's advice will give me space to clear my head when this occurs, and hopefully put me in a better place to encourage the students to do the work and come to a solution on their own. Also, Jose responded to my comment almost immediately, and offered to answer any questions I might have in the future, so I think he is a good resource to keep on your list.
I am looking forward to reading future blog posts by both of these Edubloggers, and I encourage you to do the same!
This question really hit home with me, because it is something I have thought about in my placement. In our education classes at school, our teachers constantly harp on the fact that we need to relate topics back to students' prior knowledge. They grade us on whether or not we explicitly talk about students' prior knowledge in our teaching videos in math methods. While I often believe that this is beneficial to the students, and makes a "new topic" seem less daunting to them when it involves things they have already learned, Mr. Baker makes me question whether this is the best way to go about our teaching. If my students' prior knowledge indicates that I should be teaching them step-by-step procedures instead of allowing them to participate in inquiry-based learning experiences, should I listen to that prior knowledge? Unfortunately, I have to say no. While we should play off of students' prior knowledge whenever possible, I feel like sometimes we are doing so at the expense of our students. All students deserve to be taught the conceptual nature of math instead of just the procedural knowledge. Students may never need to understand how to factor a polynomial in their future job, but I guarantee they will benefit from the inquiry and problem solving skills gained when we approach the topic from a conceptual level instead.
Another blog I came across, thanks to my classmate Vi, is Jose Vilson's blog which you can find here. Jose writes a lot of thought provoking blog posts, especially about race and equality in the classroom. One post that I found particularly interesting was titled "I'm the M.E.T.H.O.D. Man (Classroom Questioning Tiger Style. In this post, Jose talks about the fact that asking questions just because they start with "how" or "why" doesn't necessarily mean we are asking meaningful and beneficial questions. He also gives some of his tips and tricks about how to get students to think for themselves instead of allowing them to frustrate you into giving them the answer. One of his pieces of advice is to take a breath and keep calm when you see students not thinking. At my placement, I have experienced numerous occasions where students simply aren't doing the work. They wait for you to give them the answer, or they don't even care to write down any answer at all. This frustrates me to no end, because my mentor teacher, the other student teacher in the classroom, and I are all willing to help them, and they simply aren't interested in receiving that help. I believe that Jose's advice will give me space to clear my head when this occurs, and hopefully put me in a better place to encourage the students to do the work and come to a solution on their own. Also, Jose responded to my comment almost immediately, and offered to answer any questions I might have in the future, so I think he is a good resource to keep on your list.
I am looking forward to reading future blog posts by both of these Edubloggers, and I encourage you to do the same!
Flipping the Classroom
One day this semester, we had a guest speaker come in named Jon Palmer. Mr. Palmer is known for his "Flipping Physics" videos that he has created. Before coming into this program, I had never heard of flipped classrooms, and it was only this semester that I started to really understand how they work. In a flipped classroom, students actually learn the material at home, and then do their "homework" while they're in class. When they're at home, students might watch a video or a Powerpoint lecture, depending on how their teacher sets it up.
Mr. Palmer first started teaching in a traditional classroom. He then decided to videotape his classes, as a way of gathering information about his teaching. Eventually, he started creating videos that are now used in others' flipped physics classroom! His videos are highly entertaining, and often he goes out and completes real world tasks, such as riding a bike, to explain different concepts like acceleration. Mr. Palmer said that students usually have trouble understand how you can have a negative acceleration, and that actually showing them what this looks like by taking video of himself riding a bike, the students are much more apt to understand and remember the concept.
Mr. Palmer's lecture really got me thinking about what it takes to flip a classroom. I first thought about what a flipped classroom would look like in my current student teaching placement. My biggest concern would be access. While my students are very good at navigating their smart phones (especially during class) I don't know how many of them actually have internet access and computers at their homes. Many of them have spoken about the struggles that they have in their home lives, and the demographic of our school does not guarantee that students have luxuries such as computers. I know that Mr. Palmer and others have said that if they don't have computers, you can have the students watch the videos on their phones. However, I don't know that I believe the students would learn as much trying to watch a lecture on a screen that's only a couple inches big. Furthermore, I have no idea what number of my students have cell phones and data plans. I know that two students in the MAC program are in a flipped classroom together, and they said they pre-load lectures onto laptops for students to take home, so that they can watch them without internet access. I think this is a good idea, but I worry about the liability of allowing the students to take laptops home. Many of our students can't remember to bring a pencil to class, let alone be responsible for a laptop!
Then I started thinking about whether or not I would use a flipped classroom in the future. A lot of this, for me, would depend on my students. If I have students who consistently do their homework and who I trust would watch the videos each night and take notes, I would consider doing a flipped classroom. However, if the students don't watch the videos, then not only do you have to take the class time to explain the new material to them, but now you've wasted the time in which they're supposed to be doing their "homework" therefore you've just gone back to a traditional classroom setting. Also, if I were to flip my classroom, I would want to make sure that my video lectures were of a high quality, and were not just powerpoint slides thrown together. I know this would take a lot of time, so I would have to make sure I'm willing to dedicate that extra time to creating the videos and making it worthwhile for my students. Lastly, I am concerned about how school districts generally feel about flipped classrooms. Is this something you need to get permission about from administration? Does every school district allow it? Is there a lot of push back from parents? These are all questions that come to mind when I think about flipping my future classrooms. Overall, I like the idea of a flipped classroom, but I'm not sure that I believe the benefits of flipping my math class would outweigh the struggles I would run into by doing so.
Would you flip your classroom?
Mr. Palmer first started teaching in a traditional classroom. He then decided to videotape his classes, as a way of gathering information about his teaching. Eventually, he started creating videos that are now used in others' flipped physics classroom! His videos are highly entertaining, and often he goes out and completes real world tasks, such as riding a bike, to explain different concepts like acceleration. Mr. Palmer said that students usually have trouble understand how you can have a negative acceleration, and that actually showing them what this looks like by taking video of himself riding a bike, the students are much more apt to understand and remember the concept.
Mr. Palmer's lecture really got me thinking about what it takes to flip a classroom. I first thought about what a flipped classroom would look like in my current student teaching placement. My biggest concern would be access. While my students are very good at navigating their smart phones (especially during class) I don't know how many of them actually have internet access and computers at their homes. Many of them have spoken about the struggles that they have in their home lives, and the demographic of our school does not guarantee that students have luxuries such as computers. I know that Mr. Palmer and others have said that if they don't have computers, you can have the students watch the videos on their phones. However, I don't know that I believe the students would learn as much trying to watch a lecture on a screen that's only a couple inches big. Furthermore, I have no idea what number of my students have cell phones and data plans. I know that two students in the MAC program are in a flipped classroom together, and they said they pre-load lectures onto laptops for students to take home, so that they can watch them without internet access. I think this is a good idea, but I worry about the liability of allowing the students to take laptops home. Many of our students can't remember to bring a pencil to class, let alone be responsible for a laptop!
Then I started thinking about whether or not I would use a flipped classroom in the future. A lot of this, for me, would depend on my students. If I have students who consistently do their homework and who I trust would watch the videos each night and take notes, I would consider doing a flipped classroom. However, if the students don't watch the videos, then not only do you have to take the class time to explain the new material to them, but now you've wasted the time in which they're supposed to be doing their "homework" therefore you've just gone back to a traditional classroom setting. Also, if I were to flip my classroom, I would want to make sure that my video lectures were of a high quality, and were not just powerpoint slides thrown together. I know this would take a lot of time, so I would have to make sure I'm willing to dedicate that extra time to creating the videos and making it worthwhile for my students. Lastly, I am concerned about how school districts generally feel about flipped classrooms. Is this something you need to get permission about from administration? Does every school district allow it? Is there a lot of push back from parents? These are all questions that come to mind when I think about flipping my future classrooms. Overall, I like the idea of a flipped classroom, but I'm not sure that I believe the benefits of flipping my math class would outweigh the struggles I would run into by doing so.
Would you flip your classroom?
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Tech Tools in Use: Prezi
Over the semester, different groups from my class have been presenting on different tech tools and their uses in the classroom. One of my favorite presentations was about an awesome tool called Prezi. In my opinion, Prezi is an "exciting" version of PowerPoint. It zooms in and out, and flies all over the page, but still can hold the same information and pictures as PowerPoint can. I have used Prezi before for a couple presentations, but I had never really considered how it could be integrated into one of my future math classrooms.
One really cool thing that I learned from the presentation, which I had never even though about before, is that people publish their Prezis on the web for other people to use. If you search "Math classroom Prezi" or something to do with teaching math and Prezi you will get to see other Prezis that math teachers have made! Some of them are really great, and this is an awesome way to save time, or to have an extra tool to show when teaching on a certain topic.
One of my classmates, Jeni, was talking about how she would integrate Prezi into her science classroom by using it to show procedures on how to do labs. This inspired me to think of all of the different procedures that we teach in the math classroom. Could I make a Prezi about the process of solving a quadratic equation? Factoring a polynomial? Finding the x-intercepts on a calculator? Yes! And so much more. There are Prezi templates that are even set up in such a way that it's quick and easy to fill in the steps of your procedure and voila.
I think that creating Prezis on how to do different functions on a calculator would be incredibly beneficial, especially for the students in my current placement. They often have trouble remembering how to do different things on the graphing calculators, such as entering an equation, graphing it, looking at the table, and finding the intercepts. Handouts that list the steps of these procedures are good, but the students often lose them and aren't interested in reading through the steps. With a Prezi, though, we could keep them all in one location online, and include pictures that show exactly which buttons the students should be pressing. I think this would help them out, and I believe they would find it more interactive and enjoyable than the usual handout.
My only issue with using Prezis as resources for the students to go back and look at when they forget a procedure is the issue of access, again. If students don't have computers or internet at their houses then it's a little hard for them to log on and re-watch these presentations. I guess think is an issue I will have to think about further. I'm interested in looking more into how other teachers use Prezi in math classrooms and whether or not they have experienced issues with access inequities or not.
One really cool thing that I learned from the presentation, which I had never even though about before, is that people publish their Prezis on the web for other people to use. If you search "Math classroom Prezi" or something to do with teaching math and Prezi you will get to see other Prezis that math teachers have made! Some of them are really great, and this is an awesome way to save time, or to have an extra tool to show when teaching on a certain topic.
One of my classmates, Jeni, was talking about how she would integrate Prezi into her science classroom by using it to show procedures on how to do labs. This inspired me to think of all of the different procedures that we teach in the math classroom. Could I make a Prezi about the process of solving a quadratic equation? Factoring a polynomial? Finding the x-intercepts on a calculator? Yes! And so much more. There are Prezi templates that are even set up in such a way that it's quick and easy to fill in the steps of your procedure and voila.
I think that creating Prezis on how to do different functions on a calculator would be incredibly beneficial, especially for the students in my current placement. They often have trouble remembering how to do different things on the graphing calculators, such as entering an equation, graphing it, looking at the table, and finding the intercepts. Handouts that list the steps of these procedures are good, but the students often lose them and aren't interested in reading through the steps. With a Prezi, though, we could keep them all in one location online, and include pictures that show exactly which buttons the students should be pressing. I think this would help them out, and I believe they would find it more interactive and enjoyable than the usual handout.
My only issue with using Prezis as resources for the students to go back and look at when they forget a procedure is the issue of access, again. If students don't have computers or internet at their houses then it's a little hard for them to log on and re-watch these presentations. I guess think is an issue I will have to think about further. I'm interested in looking more into how other teachers use Prezi in math classrooms and whether or not they have experienced issues with access inequities or not.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Tech in my Placement
When I envisioned myself student teaching, I envisioned a classroom that was full of technology with smart boards, DVD players, etc. However, my student teaching experience has been quite the opposite. When filling out the "Tech in my Placement" survey I realized just how sparse the technology in my classroom and placement school really is. I had to go to the classroom to even look and see if we had a projector! We did have one, but we have never actually used it. We also have a TV that we've never used, and I'm not even sure if it works.
So, I guess the bigger issue is not only that we have very few technological devices, but that we rarely, if at all, use the ones that we do have. We even have giant Mac desktops in the back of our classroom, but I've never seen them turned on! Also, when the students want to use them, they have to ask for a keyboard, which I think is a good policy, but I'm not sure that all students are aware of this. Some might just think that the computers are out of commission because they have no keyboards, and therefore not know that they are available for use.
I have tried to think about how I could incorporate our classroom technology into the curriculum when I take over in the spring. I also thought about whether or not there was a reason that my mentor teacher hasn't used the technology yet. One of the reasons I came up with is that maybe he is worried that they will be destructive or use the technology for inappropriate purposes, such as checking their Facebook or Twitter.
Because of this, I probably wouldn't have them use the Mac computers in the back. However, I would love to use the projector when I start giving my lessons. Right now we have white boards, but they're often hard to see from the back of the classroom, especially when the dry erase markers are running out constantly. Using the projector would probably take care of this issue, and it would allow me to better teach a lesson to the class. I would LOVE to have a smart board, because I think they are so great for teaching, especially in a math classroom. I know, though, that I can't just magically wish a smart board into our classroom. I hope that, when I get my own classroom upon graduation, that I will have access to a smart board and will be able to leverage that tool.
So, I guess the bigger issue is not only that we have very few technological devices, but that we rarely, if at all, use the ones that we do have. We even have giant Mac desktops in the back of our classroom, but I've never seen them turned on! Also, when the students want to use them, they have to ask for a keyboard, which I think is a good policy, but I'm not sure that all students are aware of this. Some might just think that the computers are out of commission because they have no keyboards, and therefore not know that they are available for use.
I have tried to think about how I could incorporate our classroom technology into the curriculum when I take over in the spring. I also thought about whether or not there was a reason that my mentor teacher hasn't used the technology yet. One of the reasons I came up with is that maybe he is worried that they will be destructive or use the technology for inappropriate purposes, such as checking their Facebook or Twitter.
Because of this, I probably wouldn't have them use the Mac computers in the back. However, I would love to use the projector when I start giving my lessons. Right now we have white boards, but they're often hard to see from the back of the classroom, especially when the dry erase markers are running out constantly. Using the projector would probably take care of this issue, and it would allow me to better teach a lesson to the class. I would LOVE to have a smart board, because I think they are so great for teaching, especially in a math classroom. I know, though, that I can't just magically wish a smart board into our classroom. I hope that, when I get my own classroom upon graduation, that I will have access to a smart board and will be able to leverage that tool.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Facebook and Fakebook (A 504 Inspired Topic)
It's fall semester, so our blogging assignments are starting back up! One of our options was to blog about something related to technology in the classroom. I decided to write about Facebook and Fakebook, because two classmates and I will be giving a 75 minute presentation on the subject in a couple weeks.
I don't know about you, but I had never heard of Fakebook until I was assigned this presentation topic. And, to be honest, I'm still not really sure about it's usefulness, even after having done a lot of research on it. Basically, Fakebook looks similar to the Facebook layout we are all familiar with, but you don't actually create it about yourself. It's intended for students to create "Facebooks" for historical, fictional, or any other character or person. You can upload a profile picture, give them fake friends that they might have been friends with in their story or when they were alive, create statuses for them, etc. You can really do most of what Facebook does, but it's all fake. It seems strange, but I suppose it could be an interesting way for students to do a non-traditional book report or person-study on a character/person they've come across in class.
However, aside from elementary uses such as a book report, I wouldn't use Fakebook in my secondary classroom. I would, however, use Facebook in my class. The most important feature, I believe, that would be useful in a classroom is the "groups." In fact, the MAC program uses a group on Facebook to communicate, and it is a great way for us to stay connected and help each other out! In the group feature, you can add certain members and make it "closed" so no one can join without permission, which is what you would want for a classroom group. Then, group members can post in the group and add pictures. We usually post questions about homework assignments, places where we are studying so we can meet up with each other, etc. I think this would be extremely beneficial for high school students, because it would give them a place to discuss and collaborate about the different topics we have been covering in class.
However, there are also many scams and otherwise dangerous aspects so using an online social media platform in a classroom. This is going to be a big part of my group's presentation, so I won't go into it much right now, but I will make a blog after we present so that people can keep those hazards in mind if they decide to use Facebook in their schools.
I don't know about you, but I had never heard of Fakebook until I was assigned this presentation topic. And, to be honest, I'm still not really sure about it's usefulness, even after having done a lot of research on it. Basically, Fakebook looks similar to the Facebook layout we are all familiar with, but you don't actually create it about yourself. It's intended for students to create "Facebooks" for historical, fictional, or any other character or person. You can upload a profile picture, give them fake friends that they might have been friends with in their story or when they were alive, create statuses for them, etc. You can really do most of what Facebook does, but it's all fake. It seems strange, but I suppose it could be an interesting way for students to do a non-traditional book report or person-study on a character/person they've come across in class.
However, aside from elementary uses such as a book report, I wouldn't use Fakebook in my secondary classroom. I would, however, use Facebook in my class. The most important feature, I believe, that would be useful in a classroom is the "groups." In fact, the MAC program uses a group on Facebook to communicate, and it is a great way for us to stay connected and help each other out! In the group feature, you can add certain members and make it "closed" so no one can join without permission, which is what you would want for a classroom group. Then, group members can post in the group and add pictures. We usually post questions about homework assignments, places where we are studying so we can meet up with each other, etc. I think this would be extremely beneficial for high school students, because it would give them a place to discuss and collaborate about the different topics we have been covering in class.
However, there are also many scams and otherwise dangerous aspects so using an online social media platform in a classroom. This is going to be a big part of my group's presentation, so I won't go into it much right now, but I will make a blog after we present so that people can keep those hazards in mind if they decide to use Facebook in their schools.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Common Core
The Common Core State Standards freak me out. Really. Taking some of the math practice problems online and looking at the guidelines that go along with the test gave me anxiety. How am I going to ensure that my students can be successful on this test? How can I avoid "teaching for the test"? We discussed some of these issues in class yesterday, but I really didn't find any comfort in a solution.
One of the major things I'm going to have to incorporate into my math class is not only teaching students the math, but teaching them to be explicit in their explanations of how they got to their answers. On the Common Core Assessment, part of the math section is to explain how the student got to a certain answer. This isn't intuitive, especially in the younger grades, and it's a skill that has to be taught and cultivated. I can't just show students how to do a story problem and expect them to be able to explicitly list the steps and thought process they had about it. I'm going to have to consciously think about it.
What scares me even more about the test, is the fact that they have to take this test online. The test related to the Common Core is actually called the Smarter Balance Assessment. This means that I'll have to teach my students not only how to write exponents on paper like they'll usually see them, but also how to write them on a computer (2^7). I guarantee there will be a handful, if not majority, of my students who have never seen that exponent computer symbol before. This test also assumes that they are comfortable using the numbers on a keyboard and typing in general. Hopefully, if I'm teaching high school, they will have some of these skills, but I know that I will need to teach some of them as well.
Furthermore, I am graded on how well my students do on this test! This means that even if I have brilliant students, who just enter their answers wrong on the computer or have difficulty with typing and other keyboard entries, they could get much lower scores than they deserve, and I could get punished for it. How then, do they expect us not to spend our time teaching directly to the test in order to attempt to "guarantee" their success on it? I suppose this comes down to a moral issue, of me knowing that it's more important to teach them the math material and make sure they understand the concepts that will help them in the future, rather than focusing on how to type equations exactly how the assessment wants them. What's even better, is that this test will be enacted during my first year of teaching!
Can you say stressed?
One of the major things I'm going to have to incorporate into my math class is not only teaching students the math, but teaching them to be explicit in their explanations of how they got to their answers. On the Common Core Assessment, part of the math section is to explain how the student got to a certain answer. This isn't intuitive, especially in the younger grades, and it's a skill that has to be taught and cultivated. I can't just show students how to do a story problem and expect them to be able to explicitly list the steps and thought process they had about it. I'm going to have to consciously think about it.
What scares me even more about the test, is the fact that they have to take this test online. The test related to the Common Core is actually called the Smarter Balance Assessment. This means that I'll have to teach my students not only how to write exponents on paper like they'll usually see them, but also how to write them on a computer (2^7). I guarantee there will be a handful, if not majority, of my students who have never seen that exponent computer symbol before. This test also assumes that they are comfortable using the numbers on a keyboard and typing in general. Hopefully, if I'm teaching high school, they will have some of these skills, but I know that I will need to teach some of them as well.
Furthermore, I am graded on how well my students do on this test! This means that even if I have brilliant students, who just enter their answers wrong on the computer or have difficulty with typing and other keyboard entries, they could get much lower scores than they deserve, and I could get punished for it. How then, do they expect us not to spend our time teaching directly to the test in order to attempt to "guarantee" their success on it? I suppose this comes down to a moral issue, of me knowing that it's more important to teach them the math material and make sure they understand the concepts that will help them in the future, rather than focusing on how to type equations exactly how the assessment wants them. What's even better, is that this test will be enacted during my first year of teaching!
Can you say stressed?
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