Coach+Journal+-+October+2010

This month we tried something new in math class. Students were working on developing their number sense, and in the past, our teachers had assigned a project called the “special number” project. The goal of the project was to allow students some choice in picking a particular number, and answering certain questions about the number. Students had to tell if it was prime or composite, what are the first ten multiples, what are its factors, showing the prime factorization, and to find at least three real world connections to that number. These were all the concepts that they had been working on to this point. This assignment was to serve as a summative assignment.

Although this project had not been assigned for the past few years because the district adopted a new textbook, we decided that this was the type of assignment that would help students think about numbers a little differently. We are working hard to get students to “think” about numbers, and to make connections between the materials presented in class with applications outside of school.

Students have always had a lot of choice in this assignment as far as how to present their number. As coach, I suggested a digital poster could be one way to present the information. I set up edu.glogster.com and enrolled all 6th graders, so they would have their own login. Teachers offered glogster as one way to present the special number project.

Though the technology was new to almost everyone, teachers included, there was definitely excitement in the classroom when students were given opportunities to work on their projects. Many students took advantage of the digital poster option and they spent some class time, and time at home working on these projects. We did find a few students who were familiar with gloster.com, and we were able to make them “experts” to help out students who had questions about how to use glogster’s features.

Throughout this month, I have seen the math teacher change the way class is constructed, allowing for more “thinking” time for the students. Questions asked are not simple knowledge type questions, rather questions that require analysis and multiple steps to solve. The teacher is asking for more explanation from students, and this in turn has started to have an impact on how students think about a problem before attempting to solve it. Hopefully, this will have a positive effect on student achievement.