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Hi, I’m Bonnie from Oklahoma!
My name is Bonnie and I teach at a very small rural school in Oklahoma. Previously I taught junior high math and Algebra I, but last year they departmentalized our 3rd-6th grade. So I am the math teacher in the Upper Elementary now. It’s definitely been a change but I have loved it. The younger students so much more eager to learn! I am always looking for better ways to improve my instruction. I liked math growing up because I could mimic the teacher, taking notes was easy, and I was never made to think. I want to switch that around for my students, but change is hard. So I am here for all the help I can get. I have also just read the book Building Thinking Classrooms, and I am so on board with it!
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4 Replies
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@bonnie.casteel Such a great book! Welcome Bonnie! We’re eager to help you get started. What would be your biggest hurdle right now heading back to school?
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My biggest hurdle is planning and delivering the lessons. I have so my prep. I think I need to start small.
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@bonnie.casteel You may want to start with the PD pathway on building resilient problem solvers. You can find the PD pathway in the COURSES link in the menu.
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I started small by simply plugging in a task that related to a Big Idea and the textbook content (and reduced the related textbook work). I started with the Krispy Kreme donut problem. Of course, it actually took 3 days to complete the problem (we explored factors and products within arrays along with the concept of flexible numbers in more depth). I should mention that at the beginning of that year (year before Covid), fully half of our 4th graders were below the 20th percentile in Math. So I thought this would be a good review of multiplication and a way to begin pairing multiplication and division. ANYWAY, they worked collaboratively and were quite engaged, so I found it worthwhile and will use it again this year. With Covid, I expect this year’s group will need some conceptual review and practice. We closed out the project with donut holes, too. Good luck and have fun with it.
