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.