Journals: 7
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Hello! Although I gave myself a 4 for emotions, I am feeling more confident about my project. I was trying to focus on numbers sense and math facts with my fourth grade class. But my plan has changed a little. I want to focus on my teaching of number sense and how my peers teach number sense. How does it differ? How is it the same? I am working on creating a teacher survey to see where we are similar and where we are different. I would like to see how much time is spent daily or weekly on number sense and math facts. I wonder if the amount of time working with number sense makes a huge difference or does the type of number sense activity make more of a difference? I don't have a question ironed out yet, but I am definitely closer.
I have been reading articles related to number sense and math facts. I have come to some realizations that if my students do not have a strong foundation in number sense it may be a waste of time to teach them their math facts. It may be too frustrating and give them a false feeling towards math.
I guess I still need to work with my question and to word it. I need to get started on the teacher survey and see what kind of data I can collect. I also am wondering how I will collect date over time, will I need multiple teachers to compare against? I don’t know. Maybe I can get some ideas from all of you.
Thanks!
This is interesting. I know that students need to understand what the facts mean, but I also know that knowing the facts is so important to the whole process. Do the teachers you know use the ten frame for learning addition and subtraction facts? And there is a distributive property frame for learning some multiplication things. I think Jan Newman and Cathy Byers had somethings on that from the NCTM confernce. Wouldnt it be great if they understood and could quickly use the facts? I know I would be smiling as I taught them the Middle School standards if they knew their facts and understood how to break numbers down into factors, etc.
ReplyDeleteKenna,
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting direction to go, looking at time vs. technique to teach number sense. I think consistency may be a nice indicator, too. Whichever direction you go with this, your conclusions will be valuable to the district's teachers! I think you should survey several teachers in the district to start your initial work. Then, over time, maybe interview a set of teachers you want to focus on... idk.... I'm hoping others that post will be able to give you some good ideas and good probing questions.
I guess the thing was thinking as I read all of the previous posts is that number sense is a way of thinking about math that should be woven through everything we do in math class. That makes it seems bit odd to think of compartmentalizing it and saying, "Oh, for this ten minutes of class, I will teach number sense." Although, I do know that we need to be very specific and I also know that direct instruction of a concept is often the missing key -- we somehow expect kids to "get" things without explicit instruction.
ReplyDeleteI think it could be beneficial to find some cross-curriculum ways to teach number sense as well. There are some great books out there that are fun and entertaining. I was a student in Elementary school who shut down at math time because I felt I wouldn't get it. However maybe teaching it in some other areas will increase understanding. NOt sure if this helps w/ your overall question and may make it more complicated :)
ReplyDeleteThe question of the definition of number sense, and number sense activities, again rears its ugly head. But I love the idea of comparing and contrasting amongst teachers. If I can help with your survey, troubleshoot or fill one out, let me know. Comparing different techniques and their effectiveness this way could be very productive. If you did a TIC project next year, doing the same project with the same teachers and a new set of students could be insightful and really add to your data set.
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