14
ideas that
makes sense.
(A special thanks to all the teachers who
came up with many of these ideas!)
1.
Begin with the Show What You Know,
as a pre-test. (diagnostic assessment)
Before starting the unit, ask the students to do the “Show What You Know” (or
“Unit Review” in grade 7). Show them that the red numbers in the margin
display the lessons from the unit.
As they’re working through the pre-test, encourage them to look back to the
lessons if they’re having difficulty. It may be helpful for students to look at the
Connect for the lessons they need some support with.
When the Unit is done, students could redo the Show What You Know (or Unit
Review). Again, encourage students to use the lesson numbers to help guide
them. They could also show growth in a Math Journal or Portfolio by
comparing the 2 pieces of assessment.
2.
To review a Unit, ask students to make
Study Cards. (summative assessment)
At or near the end of the unit, give each student (or pairs of students)
some index cards. Students flip back through the unit. Ask them to look
at: the Lesson Focus (found on the first page of each lesson), the Connect
for each lesson, and one or two problems from the Practice section.
On one side of the index card, students summarize the key math
learnings for the lesson. On the other side, the students show an example
of the lesson focus. Encourage students to summarize in the best way
possible (clear, succinct, snapshot). They use these cards to study.
As seen on zapple.ca (Ray Appel)
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3.
Use the Key Words.
Before starting the unit, ask the students to look at the Key Words on the
Launch page. The students could make ‘bumper stickers’ of one of the words
to show a definition, or perhaps they could make a poster showing what the
key word means. The definition could include both a drawing, and a
definition and an example or two. Students could be assessed on criteria
such as: clarity, concepts, accuracy, representation and so on...
Display the posters. Encourage students to look at these throughout the unit.
Show students that their Key Words are in bold throughout the unit.
4. Help students start a Math Journal.
Snag a copy of the “Writing a Math Journal” page from the grade 7 MMS
text. Whether you teach grade 7 or not, the ideas here are fantastic and
can be adapted across the grades.
5. Give students a choice on the Practice problems.
If timing is an issue, then consider giving students some choices on
which problems they want to do in a Venn diagram. In this example, the
“Assessment Focus” question is in the middle along with one other
question. Then, assign problem numbers in each circle so that each
circle contains easy to more difficult problems. For homework, select
one question from each circle and then collect the middle problems.
As seen on zapple.ca (Ray Appel)
6. See MMS as a resource.
Continue to use what you love. Consider as well how the
other resources fit into the Ministry’s mandates, the
IRPs, personal, school and district numeracy goals and
so on...
For ideas on literature, look in the Teacher Guide for
literature resources to fit in with the specific math
concepts you are working through. A good book list to
get you started can be found at:
www.zapple.ca/page10/page22/page22.html
7. Think about ways students can represent.
As you ask for evidence of learning, consider how students
can show their conceptual understanding. There are some
great programs where students can make comics. Many of
these programs are so easy that many students can learn
them within minutes. I created this sample using Comic Life
on a Mac. I took digital pictures and added words. Easy!
Students could represent in many media: drawing, digital
pictures, video, collage from magazines or internet, and so
on...
For more see www.zapple.ca
As seen on zapple.ca (Ray Appel)
8. Support students with kid-friendly rubrics.
As you ask for evidence of learning, consider how students
can show think about their thinking. You can use rubrics
from the Teacher’s Guide to assess. As well, (or instead of),
you could also help the students assess their own learning
using kid-friendly rubrics. You could make them with the
class or use ones that are ready-made. The Numeracy
Performance Standards are great for this as well!
For more see www.zapple.ca/page10/page14/page14.html
9.
Help kids talk math.
Math Makes Sense is set up to encourage talk. One of the sometimes
missed templates can be found in the Teacher’s Guide in the Program
Masters section. It focuses on 4 areas: Problem Solving, Reasoning,
Accuracy and Communication. If you feel that you are asking the same
kinds of questions, this template is valuable.
If you want kids to start using the questions of each other (and of their
own learning), simply pick a few questions and prompts from each
quadrant and give 1 or 2 of them to the students. As they solve
Explores, ask them to ask the questions that were selected. How does it
deepen understanding? In what cases would it be better to ask an
accuracy prompt? A reasoning prompt?
As seen on zapple.ca (Ray Appel)
9.
Make use of the “Assessment
Focus” questions.
Make a simple math journal. Use the Assessment
Focus problems, and copy them one per page.
At the bottom, copy a kid-friendly rubric.
Ask each student to use the space to solve the
problem and show their strategies. As well, have them
assess their own learning before handing it in. For the
Assessment Focus questions and rubrics for your
grade level, go to: www.zapple.ca and look under “Free
Stuff”. This section is being updated to include as many
grade levels as possible.
students look for math in the real
10. Have
world... Where is it?
The more connections students can make between their lives and
the real world, the more relevant math will be to them. They
could look through flyers, the newspaper, or go to YouTube or
Google to get ideas.
As well, they could watch my movie to see where math is used in
the real world. They could also make their own movies or photo
collage based on the “Born Numeracy” movie. The movie can be
found at: www.zapple.ca/page24/page24.html
FREE handouts to support the movie can be found at:
www.zapple.ca/page10/page23/page23.html
As seen on zapple.ca (Ray Appel)
11.
Check out the ProGuide in MMS.
Be sure to check out the ProGuide DVDs found in the front of the
WNCP Editions of the MMS ProGuides. These DVDs show some of the
lessons in real classrooms. As well, they could be used with an LCD
projector to display movie clips, masters and student text pages!
12.
Review material found in MMS.
Any new resource that aligns with the Ministry guidelines,
and the WNCP mandates can no longer have review in the
main resource. But do not fear. Math Makes Sense has a
booklet entitled, “Activating Prior Knowledge” which
should be included in your ProGuide. If not, check out the
CD ROM and the DVD.
13.
Be aware of how the “Processes of Math” (in
the WNCP document) can be found in MMS.
After checking out the “Processes of Math” in the Introduction to
the WNCP, look back again in the MMS resources. What can you
find that applies to the processes shown on the right?
Encourage students to find examples as well!
As seen on zapple.ca (Ray Appel)
14.
Support students as you would in Language
Arts.
Think of all the strategies you would use to support
students to read in other subject areas:
•activating prior knowledge
•clarifying
•buddy readers
•inferring
•predicting
•key words
•skimming/scanning
•rereading
•think aloud
•visualizing
•...and so on.
Use these strategies in math as
well as you support students to read.
Make good use of the Illustrated Glossary at the back of
the Math Makes Sense text.
As well, you can go to the site shown below. It has
amazing graphics, applets, and ideas! It’s very
interactive too!
As seen on zapple.ca (Ray Appel)