This page is dedicated to math. 

 

Math is the content area where alternative forms of assessment for learning tend to be the most distrusted. Math teachers struggle to engage students but often feel that traditional practice and problem-solving are the only way to ensure strong skills development.


These examples illustrate how using inquiry- or project-based learning and incorporating multimedia resources can deepen students’ math understanding and help them better connect to the content they have to learn. Recent and compelling findings from the cognitive neuroscience field indicate that time given to this kind of lesson prep (by teachers) and learning activity (by students) is time well spent.

 

 

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This inquiry-based unit on the Pythagoras theorem overturns

the traditional paradigm of working from the skills to the applications in favour of

having students explore underlying the mathematical relationships first.

 

Following the Understanding by Design (UbD) model of Wiggins and McTigue, I have sandwiched  direct teaching between layers

of exploration that is meaningful to the learners.

 

This link will take you to a detailed resource I created on Understanding slide by Design.

 

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Bloom’s taxonomy can get

short shrift in math classes where doing harder problems is what often passes for critical thinking. As well, differentiation unfortunately often means simply stripping out activities which involve higher order skills in order to give students with less skill more time for practice.  


This RAFTT (Role, Audience, Format, Topic, Technology)

plan is designed to involve students in analytical, creative, and synthesis skills. The focus here was to develop an inclusive activity through which students' understanding and connection to the topic would grow regardless of their level of skill development.  


Payday Loans on a RAFTT


For a collection of Payday Loan resources for students to use, go to my Diigo list.

Other tools students can use here: Blabberize, ToonDoo, Speechable, Voki.

ROLE

AUDIENCE

FORMAT

TOPIC

TECH-NOLOGY

1) person who once owed a lot of money to a payday loan operation & will never do so again

single mum on welfare who needs extra $ for a child’s prescription

personal letter or blog response

This person knows how a onetime loan can get rolled over and over again as well as the monetary and personal costs, what her life was like, how she wishes she’d never started the cycle, why she started in the first place and then kept going, how she should have dealt with the problem in the first place

scan the letter into a blog

2) student a little short of money for a party

parent who thinks students should not be able to get credit

song or rap; dramatic re-enactment

 

This person knows there are problems with these kind of loans, but is trying to persuade his girlfriend to go along with it just this once

podcast or vodcast the performance

3) would-be entrepreneur looking for a franchise business to operate

banker or target investor because he needs a little start up money

business plan

Making the case for how lucrative the business is the best place to locate, who the most likely clients are, repeat business

PowerPoint

4) loan collector

person who has not paid up

phone call

Using verbal strong arm tactics to get the debtor to pay up

podcast

5) Gail Vaz Oxlade ofTil Debt Do Us Part

one of the participants in her program who doesn’t believe these are such a bad thing

TV program

Lays out a typical case study  of a small amount borrowed to make up the month’s deficit and illustrate how much the interest will be; shows all the facts and figures -- the actual annual interest rate; how much it will cost, how long it will take to pay off if the loan is rolled over

ask her to participate in making such a program for her show

6) ‘loan-anon’ sponsor

 

(note: there is a Debtors’ Anonymous” organization

pay day loan addict trying to resist the temptation to ‘fix’ a short term problem with ‘just one loan, just this time’

series of text   messages document the conversation between the sponsor and the addict  

Sponsor counsels the addict to ‘work the program’

 

(some of my students are familiar with 10-step programs)

series of Screedbots or received tweets in Twitter

7) parent who has bailed young adult son or daughter out over and over again by paying off their loans

child who is being turned down for the first time

personal letter

Parent explains with great sadness why he/she can’t do this any more

video showing the writing of the letter;

podcast of letter being read aloud

8) payday loan shop owner

potential customers

advertisement

Benefits: ease, speed, likelihood of acceptance; how painless it is

Glogster; online brochure (Adam) 

 

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It can be a challenge to show students how math can help

them make sense of their world.

I believe this is partly because

the big ideas and essential questions from which math teachers work tend not to be outward looking. Rather they

are like little fish feeding bigger fish -- with little math concepts leading for most learners only

to bigger math ideas.


It is my goal to gradually to create an overarching set of

big ideas and essential questions which will do for math teachers what naturally occurs in other subjects -- connecting school learning to what’s real and

giving students a way to make more meaning out of math.

 

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