Monday, December 17, 2007

Hmm an interesting video

Here is a small video that I saw at the Fischbowl and was brought to Karl's attention by Alec.



Brilliant. Now how can I use this with my students.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Procrastination

As always I have left things to the last minute. Tomorrow I am being filmed doing a lesson for a textbook company. I love the stage and my kids are up for the challenge.

Since something is due..... I am procrastinating. I was reading my RSS when I stumbled upon Alec Couros' Blog and this video. It is positively amazing. The messages that are conveyed without words and the use of the scrabble game has my mind spinning with possibilities.

Here is the video. Thanks Alec for the mind stimulating. Now back to work.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Oh The Journey Continues

My Fosnot adventure continues to roll on and we are moving forward. I would like to share a few stats for you.

I did a test based on an investigation and the kids stunk the joint out. They did poorly and were confused by some of the wording. They did do well using the ratio tables but struggled to understand the whole picture. I have made a reflection of this test part of a Growing Post the students are doing. What a great way to review a test!!

Then I gave the students a test on the Strings we have been using in class. Strings being clever mental math strategies to add and subtract fractions. I was pleasantly surprised to see that most students achieved a higher level than in previous years. Most of the 50%ers now were in the 65%range and some questions were done properly where hey had never been done before.

2 3/5 - 1 4/5 always used to be a stickler. Kids needing to borrow or change the mixed number. Kids realized the values of the fractions and figured it out. I am impressed with their conceptual knowledge.

I have the kids creating voicethreads on the 2nd test. They are learning the powers of the tools this new web is giving to them.



We are playing with multiplying and dividing of fractions and will be doing this into January. Then the rest of the curriculum will come into play.

My message is that Fosnot Strings WORK.


Learn about them and start using them with your classes.