Teaching
New Presentations for the Fall
Sep 26, 2011 14:53
I will also be offering six Singapore Math full-day workshops this fall, starting in October and ending in December. The schedule and links to register for those, and for the conference, are at the bottom of my Professional Development page. If you come, be sure to tell me you saw this website, and you will receive a special little gift!
Comments
Review: Number Bonds Software for Singapore Math
Sep 14, 2011 13:37
The software, intended for grades K-2, is a simple Flash-based program. The CD comes with installers for both Mac OS and Windows. The program is small and snappy, even on older or slower computers; I have tried it on a first-generation Macbook Pro as well as two netbooks. I have used the software with young students and demonstrated it in front of a group of teachers, and this is what we found.
The program comes with four different games, ranging from very basic to more advanced. In the first game, Pond Bonds, children must move frogs to the appropriate lily pad to form correct number bonds. In the second game, Bird Bonds, the purpose is to move the appropriate bird to the right hole in the birdhouse. In this one, each bird is labeled with a number. The third game, Which Number, shows number bonds with one of the numbers missing; students must click on the correct number to complete the bond. The final game, Which Bond, gives students a number at the top of the screen, with two number bonds below. The student must click on the correct question mark where the top number should go.
The games follow the progression of Concrete > Pictorial > Abstract, which is known to lead to student success. Picking up a kicking frog and dropping it on the lily pad, or hearing it splash in the water, triggers concrete sensory feedback, especially when used with a touch screen or interactive white board. Moving birds with numbers on them starts to combine the concrete with the abstract, and the shapes of the holes in the birdhouse mirror the shapes of the number bonds in the next levels. The final two levels use the pictorial and abstract levels to good effect.
The software has several options for customization. For each game, you can set a numerical range, a time limit, and a number of players. Be aware, though, that if you go with the defaults, it may be a recipe for failure; the time limit is set to lowest, and the numbers are set to the highest range, meaning even a very fast adult can’t get a very high score. I wish the defaults had been reversed. On the other hand, if you need to move students quickly through stations, the fast pace can be good. The fastest time may not allow adequate time for learning, though. Once you set the settings for a game, they stay that way until you change them.
One area where this software is lacking is educational feedback for the player. On the early games, if you miss a question, you can go back and try again, but you don’t receive any clues about what went wrong. On the higher games, if you miss one, too bad; you can’t even try again. I would like to see some sort of helpful feedback when mistakes are made.
When you have one player set, the score for the player is displayed at the end of the game. For more players, the others have to sit through each entire set until the scores are displayed at the end. I think more interactive game play would be nice. There is no way to save scores in the software, either. I would recommend that teachers create individual score sheets for students to keep track of their scores and how they improve over time, so they compete against themselves, not against others.
Since the software is Flash-based, it cannot run on iOS devices. I hope they develop a version for that platform soon.
Conclusion: Highly Recommended
Number Bonds is a simple, inexpensive software package that can provide extra addition and subtraction practice in the classroom or at home. Children find it fun and engaging, and it provides good composing and decomposing practice, as well as mental addition and subtraction. I would use it for a wider age range of children; it can be helpful for differentiating, like with more advanced preschoolers and upper elementary students who need foundational number bond practice. It would be nice if the software had a few more features, but I’m sure those features would take away from the software’s speedy response on older hardware. For best results, it should be run on a touch device, so it would be great if it could be installed on iOS or Android in the future.
Pros:
Not expensive
Site license available
Small and fast
Good educational design (concrete > pictorial > abstract)
Fun for children
Range of levels and challenges
Compatible with a wide range of desktops and laptops
Singapore math-based!
Cons:
Not enough feedback on mistakes
Can’t save score data
Settings need to be reset when first played
Not a true multiplayer game
Needs teacher introduction to be most effective (not stand-alone)
Teachers need training to make the most of it, but program-based help is minimal
What Makes a Good Tutor?
Mar 15, 2011 13:37
I recently watched a video of a teacher helping a student master tens and ones using ten frames and unifix cubes. While the video showed some of the ways Singapore Math teaches number sense well, a few things about the teaching style struck me. These are pertinent to tutoring because it was a one-on-one situation.
One thing that stood out was that the teacher sometimes gave the answer to the student before the student had a chance to think. This is a mistake that is so easy to make; the tutor knows the answer, and the child doesn't, so why not tell the student what the answer is? That will help them learn, right?
The thing is, any good teacher or tutor knows that the best learning happens when the child discovers something for him or herself. For most people, if they know the answer, it’s hard to hold themselves back from giving it to the child. But the best teachers guide or lead children to making their own discoveries. If children are moving in the wrong direction, a good tutor guides them toward successful results. This requires a knowledge of why students are making the mistake they are making.
For example, say I’m checking some pre-algebra homework. The problem the student has to solve is 3x + 4 = 73. The student’s answer is x = 25-2/3. From my experience working with students, I will know that the student performed all steps correctly except for adding 4 to 73 instead of subtracting it. Depending on the pattern that shows up with other problems, it could be a fluke, or it could point to the need to review the concept of positive and negative integers, or how to solve an equation with a variable. If it’s the latter, we may need to go back to the concrete stage of learning and work our way back up to the abstract (equation) level. Throughout the process, I will not give the child the answers, but will ask them to justify their answers each step of the way. That way, they are more likely to catch their own mistakes and correct faulty thinking.
Being a good tutor requires more than just mastery of a subject. It requires an understanding of how the subject works, how students learn, what kinds of mistakes they might make and what those mean in terms of review. Most of all, it means being able to guide students toward their own voyages of discovery and learning.
Teach Show on A&E: Educational
Oct 09, 2010 23:38
A new reality show called Teach premiered on A&E on October 1. It follows Tony Danza as he enters the teaching profession as a high school literature teacher, with no prior teacher training.
I was fully prepared to dislike this program, as the preview indicated it would be another feel-good show about a former actor getting a chance to make a difference in young people’s lives. Why, I thought, aren’t they featuring an excellent non-celebrity teacher? But I was pleasantly surprised.
Teaching is a hard profession. It’s even harder if you want to be good or excellent at it. The show does a good job of portraying the real struggles that real teachers face: students who don’t understand what you are teaching, guardians who are in your face about their children’s needs, the demands of a curriculum and needing to differentiate your instruction to meet very diverse learning styles, administrators who bring you into their office for “the talk” about problems in your teaching, and more. It’s enough to bring even the strongest to tears, and I was glad to see the show doesn’t gloss over the pain and struggle of that first year of feeling so inadequate.
Tony’s tears and statements that “I’m not sure I can do this” are feelings I’m sure every teacher can relate to. In once scene, a special needs teacher told Mr. Danza that 100 teachers in their district had already dropped out of teaching in the first week, and she was glad he wasn’t one of them.
Danza clearly has a good heart and wants to do well by the students. However, experienced teachers will cringe at many of the novice mistakes he makes, ones that could have been avoided had he attended a good teacher training program and had an experienced mentor. For example, when he wants to talk to a girl about her poor performance, he does so in class, in front of her peers (and the camera), and he does so too long. Talk about embarrassing - no wonder the girl shuts down and escapes as soon as she can! Tony, you have to keep it real but light, and never in front of the friends. Avoid embarrassment and shame above all.
Another major misstep is how he handles special needs requests. The coach and administration try to push him into allowing students to go to the resource room on request by explaining the legality question. If the students request to work in the resource room, they have to be allowed to go. Danza doesn’t understand and instead keeps trying to build their self esteem, viewing them as lazy and able to achieve more if they only try.
The legality argument does nothing to convince Danza. The only thing that works is a special meeting to explain special needs. Towards the end, Tony is handed a piece of paper to complete. The page has text with mixed-up and backwards letters, as well as some non-words. When he is told that this is how some students see the text he is giving them, the penny finally drops, and he sees how wrong he has been.
If you would like to see this for yourself, there is a good introduction from the University of Essex that includes several reading comprehension tests simulating different types of dyslexia. I remember my special needs classes and how simulating life with a learning difference enlightened me before I ever entered a teaching situation. Without that kind of experience or training, teachers can do more harm than good, as the show demonstrates.
So is it a good idea to feature a reality show about a celebrity-turned-teacher? In this case, I think it is. Danza is personable, comfortable with the camera, able to be honest in front of others and on camera, and has the name to draw watchers. I can only hope that seeing some of his difficulties may show some of the non-educators who create education policy what teaching is actually like. Of course, they would probably think they would do a much better job. Who doesn’t, until they are tested?