The end of the school year is starting to arrive for many of us as every time I open Instagram or Facebook I see teachers who are counting down in some way (mostly counting the Mondays remaining). During this time of the year students are antsy and they want to be interacting with anything that they do. Worksheets are the LAST thing that they want to do especially when it's nice outside. I have ... View Post
Filling Students Gaps while at Home
When students leave out your classroom door for the day you as a teacher have little control over what they do until they come back to your classroom the next day. How can we help guide students (and parents) to use that time wisely to help fill in gaps that students have in their math learning? Over the past few years in my classroom I have kept a separate class blog. With this blog I took time ... View Post
Filling Students Gaps in Math while At School
Last week was all about Changing the Thinking of Students in Math as well as Finding the Gaps to Fill In to strengthen their learning in Math. As we continue to proceed through the series I want to take some time to talk about filling those gaps at school (today) as well as at home (next blog post). As a teacher you are the one that completely controls the time in your classroom. No matter ... View Post
Finding Gaps to Fill in Math
When I wrote the original post about Changing Students Thinking About Math, I never realized the feedback that I would get. Not only did I receive comments but also had emails and people asking me questions on my Facebook Fan Page. Wow, I hit a topic that people wanted more info about! I decided to not respond right away because I wanted to plan things out and really make this a series of blog ... View Post
Changing Students Thinking About Math
How often do you hear from students, "I just don't understand math." Or even more, how often do you hear from a parent, "I never got math so Trevor doesn't either." I can't even begin to count in my years of teaching the number of times I heard this. When I moved from elementary to middle school I definitely heard it more, and not just because I had six times the number of students. When I ... View Post
Preparing and Using Task Cards in Middle School
First of all, preparing any activities is always better when you have a latte in hand! After speaking with a group of teachers recently about the benefits of task cards in the classroom, I realized that not all teachers use them the same way. I started using them where each student received a task card and we simply passed them around the table or the room. This was great but this didn't get my ... View Post
