C4T #4

For the Love of Teaching

Post:
Mrs. Diane talks about using the Kagan Structure with in her classroom for Math stations. This enables students to work in groups of two, use technology through checking answers on the iPad with QR codes, and keep students engaged! Mrs. Diane breaks down the basic steps as to what the Kagan structure accomplishes.

1. Holds students accountable for doing their work
2. Ensures that all students are participating 
3. Allows students to check their answers through QR codes (which will let students know that they are doing their work correctly)

Comment:
Diane,

My name is Jerica Gary. I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I absolutely love this post! The Kagan structure that you use within your classroom sounds like a great idea. I like how it enables you to work with all of your students different personality types. This method also mixes the best of both goals that as a future educator I will do my best to accomplish which is, incorporating technology while keeping students engaged!
Thanks for such a great post!

Post:
For Mrs. Diane's second post she talks about using a multifaceted approach when teaching. She explains step by step how she uses the method in her classroom. There are seven steps that she uses to inspire her students to become more engaged with math!

• Step 1: The Beginning- within this step the teacher is to sit down and analyze what the students need to know and design a lesson plan around the content, language, and personal interest. 
• Step 2: The Language- prepare the students for the vocabulary that they will be tested on
• Step 3: Data- create a quiz, note the questions that the kids missed the most by creating a tally chart... if there is a trend, re-teach!
• Step 4: Morning math talk- create four math problems and have them displayed on the board for the students to solve, these problems include content the students need work on the most based of the data collected in step three
• Step 5: Homework- Students are to have six to eight problems a day, four days a week, the homework covers current content, spiraling content, and content that needs to be reinforced

Mrs. Diane stresses two important things to always weave into when creating math problems. First use student's names, friend's names, teachers, and interest into the word problems that are used in morning work, daily instruction, quizzes, and homework. Second, wrap your content around real world situations and themes. 

Comment:

Mrs. Diane,

I absolutely love this post! Your multifaceted approach seems easy and straight forward and I really appreciate how you explained every step and gave examples. The two things that really stuck out to me that you said was, " In stations, use students names, names of their friends, other teachers, and school staff in problems because they will more engaged with more brain involvement because their work will become meaningful." This is absolutely true! I could remember when I was in sixth grade and my math teacher would do that for us and it was very helpful for me. I would understand the problems a lot easier and it would help me perform better on my test.

The other thing that I really liked was when you mentioned teaching the "language". It is extremely important to familiarize students with the vocabulary that will be used on the quizzes or the exams that way students will not freeze up or become overwhelmed.

However, I loved your post. Thank you for sharing such valuable information.  Please feel free to explore my class blog at garyjericaedm310.blogspot.com.