How to Fuel Sense Making From A Distance – Discussion

[Gretchen Burch]

My big take away from this was the rationale provided for why pre-teaching fails. When students are given real world problems students tackle them with the thinking of what skills did my teacher give me to apply rather than the mathematical modeling, making connections and creating an argument approach. This makes so much sense to me now that it is framed this way. I have been stuck in the thinking that if students don’t have the background knowledge how can I ask them to solve given problems.

[DAVID DIEHL]

One think I looked into that I have not previously is the mention of Knowledgehook.

I have not been good with manipulatives in my past teaching but teaching remotely and using tasks from this course have shown me so many places I could use them if in person.

Since we are remote for the rest of the year I think, I am interested in the manipulative aspect of Knowledgehook. I use a lot of Desmos and there is some there too, but I am really excited about getting back in the classroom and offering concrete manipulatives often.

I am wondering if anyone has taught students how to make their own algebra tiles or other useful manipulatives for 7th/8th grades at home or use common household things for students. Many of my students are struggling economically so I do not want them to buy things or assume they have certain things lying around but I will keep thinking, just not sure if someone already thought of a good ideas for concreteness for at home students. In the meantime, Desmos, a little Geogebra and Braining Camp and maybe Knowledgehook for virtual manipulatives.

[Lori Plate]

I thought it was a great reminder that these strategies can be used synchronously as well. I also needed the reminder that fueling sense making is difficult to do using the chat box.

[Jon]

Using the chat is tough. Those tools that allow students to upload thinking is much nicer. Are you heading back to virtual this year?

[Lori Plate]

As of now, we are back in person without any mask mandates. We’ll see how long that lasts. We start with students this Thursday.

[Denny Nelson]

Some students have found the invididual comments in Google slides helpful. I also like that I can make comments directly on their page. I’m even able to relatively quickly see how many of them are progressing at once … or if everyone is stuck I know it is time for a time out and see what is going on.

I do need to be thoughtful if I want to release the entire slides like I did last year. Witholding information is also important. I may need to make sure that certain pieces of information can only be found after the group as a whole is ready to move foward.

[Dawn Oliver]

I have learned about some very useful resources for teaching online. I have used a few of them: Google Docs and Slides, and presented through Google Meets; Flipgrid, Nearpod, Desmos and PearDeck. I have also used Edpuzzle, it is a good resource for adding questions during a video. I will have to explore some more and get better at implementing these resources. There are so many things out there to use it can be a little overwhelming.