Week 4: September 26

Hello Everyone!

Left to Right: Pigeon HeadWaters Provincial Park, Tractor Pull at Lindsay Ex,
Pigeon HeadWaters Provincial Park, Sunset at Lindsay Ex.
Katic, K. September 24, 25, 2016. 

Welcome back to this week's blog post! As you are well aware of, it's October in only 2 days! As
such, with the program we've been extremely busy with lesson planning, conducting lessons, webinars, unit planning (to only name a few)! As such, as I have said many times before, it's always important to become mindful during our day, and to remember those quiet simple joys in our lives that we find pleasure in. Throughout this week, I reflected back to this past weekend and the incredible amount of joy I get from going to Local Fairs and on long, peaceful hikes. The Tractor Pull at the Lindsay Ex was EXTREMELY loud but I would highly recommend it, it was super exciting! In conjunction with exploring Pigeon HeadWaters Provincial Park, I keep those positive memories close to me when going through stressful moments. Just as I celebrate my successes with scaling a slippery rock slope while hiking, I too believe that in the context of the classroom, we must be hypersensitive to the importance of celebrating the success of our students, not just in math class but in all other subjects! This promotes a positive classroom environment for everyone, and is something that I wish I had when I was a student.

This is where the importance of Differentiated Instruction comes in! Fundamentally, as math teachers we must have a thorough, extensive knowledge of the Curriculum and be able to identify exactly what we are trying to teach, the Big Ideas behind our lessons. However, D/I is equally as important; we have all heard this term many times throughout college, however, it isn't simply a term we can just *shrug* off, we must actively incorporate this in our classrooms to ensure our student's success. This is where the discussion of Rich Tasks comes into play. These tasks, comparably to Parallel Tasks that we discussed earlier, are great for engaging our students as they accommodate for a variety of levels of our students and provide everyone with the opportunity to succeed. However, as teachers, rich tasks are difficult to create until you become good at it. This is where carefully constructed examples of Rich Tasks can help us greatly. One such example I have included below; we explored this Grade 4 level Rich Task in class and I thought it was a great task!

~ Rich Question From Class ~

A group of students are participating in a project where they are trying to determine how many students in their class are active during lunch time. There are 24 students in the class. Half of the students in the class like playing soccer, one quarter like playing adventure playground, one sixth enjoy sitting around, and the remainder like playing tag. Then they decided to ask the teacher and she also liked sitting around.

What percent of students are active during lunchtime? Show your work.

Katic, K. (Sept. 24, 2016). "Vine to Victory".
Lindsay Exhibition.

We proceeded with this question through using a "placemat"; everyone at our table groups shared one piece of paper to show our work with this question. While I understood the purpose behind this activity (to see our peers' work), some found it fantastic! .... Others found it to be slightly anxiety-inducing should one get intimidated by seeing others' work before writing down their own. As such, accommodation is required in our classes, such as providing extra scrap paper before writing on the group placemat.

This conversation about the importance of Rich Tasks reminded me of a really well-done poster board that I saw at the Lindsay Fair this past weekend, and while it isn't explicitly mathematically related, there are many ways this can be used in our math classrooms. This poster board inquires about how to successfully grow a Giant Pumpkin, and it was created by a local Grade 4 student. This can lead to many various discussions in our classrooms, and I think that any Grade 4 student would be curious about how to grow a Giant Veggie! Mathematically related questions can include relations to temperatures, weight, area and perimeter, the possibilities are endless!

Kelly, E. (Sept. 25, 2016).
Pigeon HeadWaters Provincial Park.

In addition, we can create our own Rich Tasks by using the world around us! Like I stated in the section above, I went on a really great hike this past weekend, and this got me thinking about the picture I have included along side the text. I am sitting at the top of the "Lookout Post" in this park, and in the picture there are 8 stairs. We could ask our students to estimate how tall they believe the Lookout Post is in comparison to my height sitting down, if they're curious as to where it is, they can do some research in regards to calculating the area of the park, how long the trails are in the park in relation to other parks in the nearing neighbourhood, once again the possibilities are endless! It all depends on the level of engagement that your students have, as well as how effectively the Mathematical Processes are being used for the tasks at hand. Just as a reminder, the Mathematical Processes that we constantly refer to are: 

• Reasoning & Proving 
• Selecting Tools & Computational Strategies 
• Connecting 
• Representing
• Communicating 



Katic, K. (Sept, 30, 2016).
Various Resourceful YouTube Videos. 

• Problem Solving

Finally, there were a variety of video resources this week that completely changed the way that I view mathematics! I have included links to all of them below in the references section. The first video asks simple question:

What is 18x5? 

No Calculators. 

At first, this question seems daunting! I thought to myself, 18x5 without a calculator? Then I thought about it, ok it can't be that hard, 10x5 is 50, and 8x5 is 40, add them together it's 90. Then I decided to see if there was another way to do it, and there is! In fact, the second video discusses the various ways to calculate this in our minds, and the last solution discussed is my favourite! Finally, the last video takes us on an interactive Mathematical Tour, and quite honestly this completely changed the way that I viewed math. I saw math as being an interconnected subject where all of the strands are connected and relatable to everything that we do in our lives. I would highly recommend this video, especially for people who are transitioning towards a growth mindset. 

I hope that you learned something from reading this post today! If you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them in the comments section below. Remember, it is important that while we experience stress in our lives, we must remember those quiet, joyful moments in order for us to be healthy in our minds, bodies and spirits. I hope that the image I have included below inspires you as much as it does me. Thanks for reading! 

Katic, K. (Sept. 26, 2016).
Pigeon HeadWaters Provincial Park.

References 

Lesson 4a. (June 12, 2014). Lesson 4a. YouTube Video. Retrieved From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTn_KNjItZ8&feature=youtu.be
Lesson 4b. (June 12, 2014). Lesson 4b. YouTube Video. Retrieved From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHtIBt3ootM&feature=youtu.be
Lesson 4e. (June 12, 2014). Lesson 4e. YouTube Video. Retrieved From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKmk9MnBumQ&feature=youtu.be
Lesson 4f. (June 12, 2014). Lesson 4f. YouTube Video. Retrieved From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8hzzv4a_8Y&feature=youtu.be

Photos. 
Katic, K. (September 24, 2016). Tractor Pull at the Lindsay Ex©; Sunset at Lindsay Ex©; "Vine to Victory".© Photographs. 
Katic, K. (September 25, 2016). Pigeon HeadWaters Provincial Park©. Photograph. 
Kelly, K. (September 25, 2016). Pigeon HeadWaters Provincial Park©. Photograph.