Education Week

This week I decided to take a look at a different twitter @educationweek which I found to be pretty cool.  Unlike @RenLearnUS which posts links to many different blogs relating to all different educational topics and subject matter, @educationweek posts links to live chats.  There is a different topic to each of the chats, for instance, this week was 'Integrated' Math: A Transitional Approach to the Common Core where you can see it is not just teachers on the forum.  There are superintendents, teachers, supervisors and coordinators.  People are given the chance to ask questions about integrated math.  For instance:

2:41	Madeline Will:  Paul, we have a great question from Michelle about how it's been teaching integrated math.

2:41	Comment From Michelle L.  In addition to changing the course sequence, have methods for teaching math changed? Is there more of a constructivist approach used? Are students doing hands-on activities with manipulatives and problem-solving? Or group work? Or is lecture-based?

2:41

Paul Stevenson:  Michelle, perhaps the biggest change has been in terms of teaching pedagogy. Implementing the Standards of Mathematical Practice forces a change in instruction. Students are doing far more problem solving and teachers are assigning far fewer problems each day, but the work is more meaningful and application oriented. We are moving away from lecture and using group structures pretty much every day in our classes.

This is taken directly from the forum, where questions regarding such a dramatic change in our schools are being answered almost instantly and making those fretting about the change feel more comfortable with it.  Common Core is a hard adjustment for many so as a math major, I of course found this forum to be interesting.

Flipping Math

From the blog I follow dy/dan, I discovered Kevin Davis' blog Flipping Middle School Math.  Now Kevin just decided to flip his eighth grade classroom this past week in November which he called "Day Zero."  He had faith through friends who flipped their high school classroom and succeeded with the highest state exam scores they have ever seen in their school.  Others however, put the breaks on and explained it would never work.  Now their isn't much to his blog since he hasn't gone further than assigning thee students as 12 minute video to watch and take notes on it.  But Kevin seems to be getting frustrated and antsy with flipping as only one student watched the video as of 9pm.  Might I add, the student watched less than 5 minutes of video.  However, I thought this blog would be a great one to start following, and seeing how he progresses over time because as he said at the end of the blog - he will wake up in the morning with a plan.  I also thought that it was an essential blog to discuss because well, Kevin introduced a new form of technology to me that I was not familiar with when it comes to flipping the classroom.  It's called Zaption. Now I haven't started my free trial just yet because I would like to experiment with it next semester when I myself am in a classroom.  But I did watch the demo!  It seems like an amazing tool for flipping the classroom, as Kevin said in his blog, it allows him to see which of his students watched the video and for how long!  Now you don't even have to ask your students to show them your homework, it tells you!  Also, it allows your video to become a full interactive learning experience.  Taking snipits of other YouTube Videos and dragging them into your Zaption, then adding an interactive question.  Now, if you have your own YouTube channel... you can use your own video, add it in to Zaption, and ask your students questions on exactly what you just taught.  It tracks every detail and response, and there are also some pre-made video that you can tailor.  Though there is a fee, it seems worth it to me!