Methods of Math Teaching and Learning

It has been a while since my last post. Thanks for your patience. I have been continuosly working with kindergarten class with NT. They are seeing 7 in many different ways. Students are subitizing 3 and 4 dots at a time. KeUndre and Christopher can subitize 5. Some students are exploring couting by two and use couting on as a strategy. These students are making great progress. This blog is about presenting at ACTM. My colleauge LaTesa Sanders and I presented Thursday morning. LaTesa Sanders is the math coach at Hard Elementary. Sanders and I have had several conversations about NT in the past and have wanted to present our findings. So I wrote a proposal and it was accepted.  The participants of our session were teacher with various background such as  elementary schools, middle school, AMSTI reps, and preservice teachers. We discuss the impact NT had on our students' mathematical thinking and the importance of planning. We also allowed teachers to participate. Yes, they had to so

Good evening This will be a brief post. I left my notes at work. I know I will not do the happenings in kindergarten full justice. However, I did want to discuss how one student subitize 5 during the NT this week. Of course, kindergartens know the routine-fist to your chest, thumbs up for the answer, and the agree sign. I love they know this when I walk through the door. AWESOME. The teacher and I are involved with side by side coaching as way to strengthen students counting abilitiy.  I want to focus this post on Christopher. This particular student had trouble with attention during the sessions. So I took him and the four girls to my room to see if having a small group will be beneficial for them with the next NT. Sort of like flip teaching. I used a tens frame again with six dots- two on top and three on the bottom. But the arrange was quite different. This is a conversation between me and the little fellow: Teacher: How many do you see? Christopher: I see 5 and 1. Teacher: How

Number Talks with Five Good evening Please forgive me for not posting a new blog last Sunday.  I will write my continued adventures in kindergarten. Although, I have started a NT with first grade teachers and students. This post will discuss the progress of NT in kindergarten. We continued with tens frames last week. This group remembers procedures very well. As soon as they sat in their places on the carpet, the students immediately place their fist to their chest. We are continuing working with 5 on the tens frame using both bottom and top levels. The questions I ask are "how many do you see?" and "how do you see it?" Quickly students place thumbs up to inform me they know the answer. Students responses for the most part are accurate. Most  students can denote there are 5 dots. A couple of students may say 4 or 3. Therefore, they are making progress. The following link is an example NT problem: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AOhF0OtPBhByfuMt00IWELRIMoK

Good evening, In kindergarten this week, we are continuing with the concept of four on our tens frame. This time both levels of the tens frames were use.  The tens frame below is one of the examples from class. Students are beginning to understand that four dots arrange anywhere on the tens frame is four.  Only one student continues to struggle with subitizing four: Teacher: So how many do you see. Student: I see three over here and one more over there to the right. Teacher: Well, lets count the dots. Student: One, two, three, and (with hesitation) four. Teacher: So now how many dots do you see? Student: I see four. After having this student to actually count the dots, she realizes that there are four dots and not three and one more. A couple students manipulated the dots to where they could recognize immediately there were four. This is fine. However, I want them to move from counting to actually readily knowing that there are four dots. Until then, the kindergarten teac

Good evening again. I'm sorry this post is late, but I'm in Destin Florida. The internet connection is terrible in this lovely resort. Let me not belabor the point of this blog entitled The Meaning of Four. This week in kindergarten we concentrated on the number four. Not so much of the symbol numeral 4. But what four means and how kindergarten student understand what four truly means. So, the kindergarten teacher and I did a NT involve four dots. The four dots were randomly placed on the upper tier of the tens frame. The students remember the procedures very well. Some continued to raise their hand when posed a question, but for the most part they have it. The challenge was their perception of what four means when looking at four dots. It was quite interesting to see that some students perceive four as three dots and one more. However, they could not make the connection  that there are  four dots. Some of students also quantify four dots as 2 dots and 2 more dots. However, w

This week's post is all about my experience with Number Talks (NT) with kindergartener and their teacher. I model NT for the new kindergarten teacher to give her an idea of how to incorporate NT in her daily routine. This week we used the tens frame and 3 dots. We started with the concept of 3 based upon the teacher's initial assessment of her students. First, I started with simple procedures(begin with the end in mind). Then we got into it. I showed three dot randomly arrange so that they know without a doubt the concept of three. We did this three different ways. After each showing, I asked them how many dots did they see. Most knew there were three dots. The next question was how did they see it. Now, here was the challenge. It is not uncommon for kindergarteners to come with limited vocabulary. The reason is that this is their first experience in a formal school setting. One of the goals in NT is to expand their vocabulary and to become deliberate in expressing the exact ar

Getting Ready for Number Talks! This week I will be visiting classrooms to engage in Number Talks (NT). What is NT? Number Talks is an intentional ritual to sharpen mental math by engaging in math discourse. Math discourse refers to communication in the mathematic classroom. Number Talks allows children the opportunity to strengthen accuracy, flexibility, and efficiency with mental math strategies (Parrish, 2011). I have incorporated NT as a ritual part of my classroom for at least 5 years. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to do. Allowing students to engage with mental math strategies strengthens math vernacular. Student begin to become intentional and precise with their thinking and language even at the early elementary school grades. A kindergarten teacher from another school asked me if I have tried it with kindergarten students. I told her yes. I have seen NT used in kindergarten classrooms by phenomenal teachers and have engaged with kindergarteners first hand. It's all abou

First Week of School The first week of school went by well. Although very busy, I did not get a chance to give the multiplication assessment last week. This week will be different. I have a couple assessment goals for this week. I will help the reading coach administer her assessments. In between the time, I will give math assessments. Yes! Fourth and fifth grades will take the multiplicative assessment for OGAP and a timed multiplication assessments. Also, I will  give diagnostic interviews using CBM material for first grade. I believe this assessment will yield more elicit responses and information than a computer based test. This will give their teacher and me information on where to begin with their students. I can't wait. This will probably take a couple weeks, but the information is valuable. Pray for me! I will blog next week on my progress. See you next week!

Sunday August 9, 2015 Well, another school year is here! I'm so excited to see my Mighty Champion Scholars on Tuesday especially the incoming fifth graders. I saw a  fifth grade student tonight, and he is ready for a multiplication assessment. He asked me in the store "When are we going to have a times table assessment?" I told him sometimes this week. Be ye ready! This brings me to Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP)training involving multiplicative thinking. The multiplication assessment will have some drill type problems. But I will change it up to reflect the OGAP training I received. My goal is determine if  students understand what multiplicative reasoning means conceptually. Therefore, he will receive a different type of assessment to determine his level on the multiplicative framework. From this, I will develop a Number Talk sequence and other strategies to help develop their reasoning. I will blog about the outcome of this project. I am excited!

Good Sunday evening! This week in education I participated in a Number Talks (NT) workshop presented by Ann Dominick. I have been implementing NT for several years. So the information was not new material. It solidifies my belief that math discourse is an essential part of elementary school mathematics. Student expressing themselves mathematically. Students express their understanding of the problem and preserving to solve them; critique the reasoning of other students; and look for patterns in structures; choose tools strategically and appropriately. In essence, students, through NT, display math practice standards. I can remember having rich conversations on how to solve a particular problem and explaining to one another how to solve them problem. I can't wait to get back to school to start our NT journey. I did record myself engaging in NT with my students. I may post it later. One take away from this session is to start with dot images even at the upper elementary grade. I

Good evening to all! I have not started teaching yet, but these next two post is in preparation for the upcoming school year. I have attended conferences and a leadership summit over the past week. They both were awesome experiences. Therefore, I am stoked about the upcoming school year. I am excited because I have learned something grand. I just can't wait to use this properly this year. I am super crazy excited about.... Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK)! Yes, I am excited about DOK. Let me tell you my reasoning. I heard of DOK a few years ago. However, I did not get a grand grasp of the concept until I attended a session at the MEGA Conference. I was sitting between  a phenomena teacher friend and a curriculum specialist, and both had the same reaction I had. The presenter told us she did an in depth study on this concept and realize some truths about DOK-(a) DOK is based upon the kind of thinking involved in the task; (b)DOK is Not about DIFFICULTY, it is about COMPLEXITY;

Good evening.    I know school has not started yet, but I wanted to get into the habit of posting every week. The discussion today is about reflection. I am reflecting on various professional developments I have attended. Recently, I attended the Differentiated Instruction Conference; and this past week into this afternoon, I attended the Leadership Summit for my school district. DI conference was excellent. The presenters gave talks about pedagogy and assessments and differentiating your instruction to fit the needs of your learners. The conference had several sessions on Number Talks (NT). I attended these session to look for more ideas to take back to my school to use this fall. I am glad to say I am incorporate it in my intervention classes. The presenters discuss the benefits of using NT and how it opens up math discourse. The goal is to strategically and intentionally select problems to better help our students compute efficiently. I have done this with the grades three through

Greetings to you all who took the time from your busy schedule to check out my blog! My name is Johanna Massey, and I am a math instructional coach for an elementary school in the southeast. I work with teachers and students to enhance math education at my school. The purpose of this blog is to write about my adventures teaching African American  elementary school students mathematics using best practices. The topic of my dissertation was based upon the premise that African American students are successful in math when taught using best practices especially at the elementary level. I pray that you find this blog insightful and helpful in your teaching practices. Also, feel free to make suggestions for I am not the keeper of all knowledge. I want to grow as an educator. Again thank you! http://acumen.lib.ua.edu/content/u0015/0000001/0001378/u0015_0000001_0001378.pdf