Inquiry Project Idea: Thinking Classrooms

Jacky and I will be working on this Inquiry project together! :) 

Why Thinking Classrooms? 

I've volunteered in math classrooms at my old high school, and in one of those classes, the teacher actually had an interesting and fun way of giving her lessons and teaching math. She had white boards set up around the room, and after teaching a brief lesson, she'd have students try doing problems in groups on the boards. I really enjoyed witnessing the interactivity and collaborative environment. When I asked her about her ideas, she introduced me to Peter Liljedahl's Building Thinking Classrooms book. Ever since learning about it, I've been extremely curious about Thinking Classrooms, if other teachers have used it, how they've implemented it, its effects on students, and so forth. I think the Inquiry 1 project will be extremely helpful in researching further about it.

Entrance Slip: Effects of Grades and Marks on Learning (Option 2)

As someone who recently finished undergrad and immediately jumped into the Education program, the jump from having grades and exams to a pass/fail system was very liberating. I agree with the key findings of the article, especially that "tests and grades cause significant stress for students" (p. 5). Exams were always a major source of stress for me and whenever I studied for exams, more often than not, it felt like I was cramming and memorizing as much information for the exam, only to forget it right after, so learning was not fun and a lot of it was not retained. 

A funny coincidence but I recently watched a TEDx Talk by Mark Rober that also touched on a "points" system in a game experiment and how its role affected people's learning. The fear of losing points and getting a low score significantly reduced people's attempts at the problem as well as their learning/success rates. I thought that this was really similar to how grades/marks affect students' learning in school. The fear of doing something wrong and getting a low score restricts students' creativity, their curiosity to try new things and explore different ideas. Therefore, the intrinsic motivation to learn and try new things is lost because of the idea that grades are most important so it's best to stick to what's known: the simple formula/method to get the right answer so they can get a good grade.

I think some assessment is good to assess what level students' understandings are at and where their strengths and weaknesses lie so they can find where they could focus their attention on to improve. However, I feel a lot of times, the grades system simply ranks students and makes them feel like that is their worth when really, it's so much more than what grade they get on a test, but how much they've persevered and grown as a whole. Maybe it would help to ease the worry about grades a little if students could have many fun and creative mini problem solving activities that weren't for marks but simply kept for assessing progress over time. In this way, students can also take part in discussing their grade (if a grade is needed) for each unit by referring back to their portfolio of work, what they've learned, areas of improvement and their growth throughout. 

Math is a Language (TEDx Talk)

 "Math isn't hard, it's a language" - TEDx Talk with Randy Palisoc

I stumbled upon this video today and found it really inspirational. I really liked how Randy Palisoc took an "apples plus apples" approach to explaining gradually more higher level mathematics concepts. I've actually used this idea before when teaching how to collect like terms and it really does help the students I teach. In my opinion, it makes abstract math concepts feel more concrete. By presenting math in this way, I hope it makes math less daunting to students. 

Entrance Slip: How to Swing ... the Strict Grid of Schooling

I like the metaphor with swing music, and how the strict and rigid tempo/beat acts like a backbone/skeleton, but the swing music isn't restricted to that beat --- it takes its own artistic liberties and "leans into and out from the beat, and plays with the beat" (p. 182-183). 

I like the idea of how this concept of swing music can be applied to teaching the school curriculum, as the article stated (p. 183).  The curriculum is very structured and rigid in the concepts and skills that need to be taught and learned for each course; however, as teachers, we can make our teaching more fluid, creative and free with the curriculum contents as the backbone of our lessons. We don't have to always adhere to traditional, rigid teaching styles of lecturing and going through textbooks in an enclosed classroom, and instead, we can be more experimental and creative with lessons, sometimes making it more hands-on or doing lessons outdoors like with learning gardens. I'm also not saying to get rid of the traditional type of teaching completely, but moreso to weave a mixture of both --- some days might have a more traditional lecture with worksheets while on others students tackle fun puzzles and another day they'll be crafting something --- just like how swing music leans in and out of the beat. In this way, I hope students will come into class not knowing what to expect, but with anticipation for what will be in store that day. 

Similar to how "another rhythm is possible within this rhythm" (p. 184) with swing music, other ways of teaching are possible within our age-old system of teaching.