Vocabulary Development Resources

Students depend on a base of vocabulary to comprehend increasingly difficult content. And students must maintain a solid foundation of content vocabulary to communicate mathematically with others. Vocabulary is only learned through multiple exposures. Here are my top three resources for vocabulary development in the math classroom...

#1 

Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering (2010) have completed extensive research regarding a six-step process for learning and acquiring new vocabulary terms in their book, Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher's Manual.

• The teacher provides a description of the term.
• Students restate the explanation in their own words.
• Students draw a non-linguistic representation for the term.
• Students participate in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the term.
• Students discuss the term with one another in small groups.
• Students play with the vocabulary term in games 

#2 

Ben Taylor incorporates cooperative learning and Kagan structures in his book, Vocabulary: Making It Memorable, to expose students to academic vocabulary in a variety of settings.

#3 

The Granite School District in Salt Lake City, Utah maintains a wealth of vocabulary building ideas for all grade levels and subject areas.

The MATH-7 team will investigate vocabulary building in their next Genius Hour on January 20.
Stay tuned for more details...

Leaving a Legacy

Every child deserves a champion...an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best they can possibly be.

-Rita Pierson

Hop over to the TLAP tab to watch an 8-minute TED Talk of Rita Pierson on Relationships in the schoolhouse.

Recent Updates

The Genius Hour and MATH-8 tabs have been updated with last week's progress with MATH-8 Classroom Practices and Modeling Functions. Be sure to browse the following updates to additional pages on the blog:

Achieve the Core on CCSS

Hop over to the CCSS tab and scroll to the bottom to download grade level math focus summaries.

Buzz Math iPad App

Select the iPad Apps tab to review the Buzz Math app that contains middle school math practice.

#fjhsmath Twitter Update

Scroll down on the right sidebar of this homepage to stay updated on Twitter. This log includes each post labeled with the #fjhsmath hashtag.

ETA (11.13.13):
And now as you browse the blog the Common Core State Standards are easily accessible. Look to the right of the right sidebar for the gray "Common Core App" tab. Click on the gray tab to open and close the Mastery Connect app. If you are browsing from a tablet, you will be prompted to download the app for viewing. Caution: This app is absolutely amazing; however, the side notes included in the original document are not included in this application. (For example, Algebra 1 teachers could read HSF-IF.C.7b and think they have a lot of functions to add to their curriculum when really several listed functions are reserved for Algebra 2.)

Putting all my eggs in one basket?!?

After years of opening egg cartons to inspect the contents before placing the item in my shopping cart, I found my first cracked egg today.

Photo Credit to The Krazy Coupon Lady

Years. And my husband teased me every single time he observed my habit. Once he asked me why I insisted on opening the eggs. To which I honestly replied, "My mother always checked her eggs!" I had no other reason. I had never observed a cracked egg in my mother's shopping years. Or mine...until today.  And you can be certain I'm not going to stop inspecting egg cartons now!

Do I teach this way? Do I prepare beyond the observable characteristics or needs of my students? Do I teach concepts even when my students don't ask the "why" behind each math lesson? Or do I put all of my instructional eggs in one basket? Do I teach process really well and trust that honed skills will see my students through to the next level?

And may I be so bold as to ask one more critical question? Do I focus on concept teaching for my advanced students while dwelling in the land of process teaching for my regular students? Just because my advanced students respond better/faster/nicer doesn't mean my regular students need it any less.

Join me for Genius Hour as we reflect and collaborate via a habits of mind analysis tool so we don't wait for a cracked egg to prompt us into action!

Genius Hour Bye Week

The week of September 30 is a bye week for Genius Hour. Please spend a few minutes this week reflecting on your classroom structure and the strategies and methods you use for teaching and learning.

Photo credit to Cragin Spring

Please hop over to the Genius Hour page for more details regarding your list to submit by October 4 in preparation for our next sessions scheduled for the week of October 7...

Process vs. Concept Teaching

In the post CCSS Call for Rigor, we contemplated the necessity of implementing concept teaching that reveals the process in order to meet the standards.

Is it really necessary? Or can we build mathematicians who think mathematically by focusing only on process? Will the following attributes occur as a result of process teaching?

• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
• Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
• Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
• Model with mathematics.
• Use appropriate tools strategically.
• Attend to precision.
• Look for and make use of structure.
• Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Hop over to the MATH-7 content page or MATH-8 content page for an example that compares process teaching and concept teaching.

CCSS Call for Rigor

The bottom line truly is that states, districts, and even individual schools can work tirelessly to create a plan of implementation for CCSS...they can even mandate said plan...but the teachers are the ones who implement the plan to make the shift to new standards benefit our students. Together we're building better students!

Fewer. Clearer. Higher.
That is the mantra adopted by the writers of Common Core to emphasize the difference between the new "national" standards and the old state standards. Fewer implies that the standards maintain a focus as opposed to the curriculum that did a little bit of everything each year. Clearer implies that the Common Core standards are quite specific and contain a natural progression. Higher implies that the days of "a mile wide and an inch deep" standards are replaced with a call for rigor. To reflect on the idea of rigor, please read and respond to the following post from June 2012:

If you've been in any discussion regarding CCSS, then I'm certain you have heard the standards described as rigorous. These standards require our students to have a deep understanding of the content. And if you have studied your grade level standards, then you know that is a true statement. For example, no longer will Algebra 1 students mindlessly use the quadratic formula to solve a quadratic equation. Instead they will first derive the quadratic formula by completing the square...which will enable them to know why this crazy formula with three variables truly does find the solution(s) for the variable x located in a quadratic equation.

Perhaps the community of educators has a misconception that rigor is equivalent to enrichment. Why might we be confused? Simply because enrichment is something we already do...it is familiar. However, enrichment extends procedural understanding...can the student move further with the concept? While rigor calls the student to a deeper conceptual understanding...does the student know the depth of the concept? Enrichment adds to the end of your lesson plan and requires additional time. Rigor changes your entire approach to the lesson but does not require additional time. I spy that CCSS have tackled process vs. concept teaching. In an effort to meet the standards we must implement concept teaching that reveals the process.

What are your thoughts on process vs. concept teaching? How do your students respond to each? Does that change your lesson plan? Does that change student learning tomorrow? Next month? Next year?

Genius Hour Coming Soon!

Given the shift of instructional practices in the Common Core math classroom, FJHS math teachers have been gifted with time to investigate the genius that will build better math students. And the first Genius Hour sessions will begin the week of September 16.

Hop over to the Genius Hour page to view the upcoming Calendar of Events and to submit two questions for our opening session.

Teach Like a Pirate! Book Review

As Dave Burgess explains in his latest book, his suggestion to teach like a pirate has nothing to do with the formal definition of pirate and everything to do with the spirit of a pirate.

Here are a few characteristics of pirates that we need in educational leaders:

• daring and adventurous
• willing to voyage in uncharted territories with no guarantee of success
• seek creativity
• risk takers
• embrace diverse crew members
• pursue treasure even through rough and constantly changing waters

Do any of these resonate with you and your classroom? Are you a pirate on the Fulbright ship? Let's reflect together as we set sail for a new school year. Subscribe to the TLAP tab for new posts on best practices outlined in the book.

Click on the following links for details on each letter of the PIRATE philosophy:

P is for PASSION

I is for IMMERSION

R is for RAPPORT

A is for ASK & ANALYZE

T is for TRANSFORMATION

E is for ENTHUSIASM

Update from Mastery Connect

I'm excited to share the recent update to my favorite Common Core Standards app from Mastery Connect.

The Accelerated MATH-7 standards have been updated to align with the appropriate standards outlined in the CCSSM Appendix A. Be sure you have Version 2.1.2 for the latest updates.

And here's the newest addition to the iPad Apps tab...

I found a DocAS post written by Cathy Yenca, a middle school math teacher from Austin, over on her mathycathy blog. This app also has a Lite version available at no cost. Of course the Lite version doesn't have all of the features, but you can certainly get a feel for the basics of the app as an option for notetaking and annotating PDFs.

I would love to use this app as a way for my students to organize their Frayer models for content vocabulary. To view vocabulary samples, click on your subject tab above for follow the links below.

MATH-7 Vocabulary Sample

MATH-8 Vocabulary Sample

Algebra 1 Vocabulary Sample

Geometry Vocabulary Sample

First Days of School

New school supplies...purchased around a color theme of course. Shopping with my girls for first day of school outfits. A freshly waxed classroom floor. The spirit of the halls on locker day. These are a few of my favorite things! What do you adore about the start of school?!?

It's definitely that time of year! And the first days of school set the tone for the entire year. So how do you plan to build a safe and collaborative environment for your students? How will you build teacher to student rapport? Student to student rapport? And what activities will you use on the first day to jump start these efforts?

There are lots of great ideas floating around Twitter. I've retweeted several finds with the hashtag #fjhsmath for your convenience. Login to Twitter, select the discover tab, and type #fjhsmath in the search box. One tweet links to Sarah at her Everybody is a Genius blog. She describes a first day activity called "31derful" that she has used for years. The objective is to build a 5x5 arrangement of 25 cards in which each row and each column has a sum of exactly 31. The activity can be played with a standard deck of playing cards. If your students are unfamiliar with playing cards or you are worried they will be distracted by the point-value assignments, you can download the following set of cards to use as an alternative.

Begin the activity by asking teams to use the Kagan structure RoundRobin to discuss potential plans/strategies to complete the objective. Teams should select an initial strategy to try and then take turns playing card(s) according to their team plan. Only a few teams (or perhaps no team) will finish this task. However, the activity prompts a great reflective discussion on problem solving, perseverance, and teamwork.

And remember...

A teacher has only one opportunity
to make a positive FIRST impression.
Make it count!

CCSS Filter Adjustment

Implementing the Common Core State Standards has proven to be a work in progress. Perhaps even a little deceiving...

During the transition to teaching standards in a different progression, our students enter the classroom each year looking a little different than the year before. Students will arrive with some knowledge we haven't experienced before; while other knowledge we're accustomed to building upon will be absent...by design.

In the midst of planning lessons for the new school year, proceed with caution. Be sure you have updated your knowledge filter to accommodate your new students.


See the Thinking Transformations post for a sample shift and ideas for standards 8.G.A.1, 8.G.A.2, and 8.G.A.3 in MATH-8.

Welcome!

The first day of school at the fabulous Fulbright Junior High is just around the corner. Congratulations on being an integral piece to all of the "firsts" that Fulbright has in store this year!

And one adventure at the top of the list is collaborating to build better math students. Take a few moments to follow the tabs and become familiar with this site. Please check in by leaving a comment below to share your favorite summer adventure.