The BCAMT Conference was held on Saturday November 29th 2014
BCAMT New Teachers Conference outline
BCAMT New Teachers Conference 2014 poster
Keynote Speaker
The Keynote speaker for the event was Dr. Ann Anderson. She expressed the importance of connecting math to everyday life to enhance student engagement and comprehension of applicability.
Workshops
The first workshop I attended explored the use of games in math. A key takeaway from this workshop was that games are a way to modify content and vary instruction for learners. We explored ways to minimize luck and enhance strategy in the games to optimize student thinking during the activities. We played numerous games from the Math Games for BCAMT, exploring objectives, strategies, and variations to make the games more or less difficult depending on the class and lesson objective. The games were great, however, I noticed that many created to be competitive. As a strong advocate for collaborative learning, I tried to think of variations of the games to promote a common goal for the students within the framework of the game. Focusing on a common goal, individual accountability, and positive interdependence, I came up with variations for some of the games that would promote collaboration as opposed to competition.
The second workshop was called “Creating a Thinking Classroom,” and it was based on the research of Dr. Peter Liljedahl. The basic concept is to get rid of note taking, minimize instruction, and focus entirely on constructing learning by struggling through problems and debriefing/discussing the thinking process. The key factors in this methodology include many vertical, non-permanent surfaces, random groupings, and relevant tasks created through problematizing the curriculum (A great article written by the workshop leader, Mr. Michael Pruner outlines the idea). The methodology provides ample opportunity for teachers to conduct ongoing formative assessments, and to praise strategy and thinking over results. The teacher values the struggle, and the thinking required to solve the problems. After the students have struggled through the problems, the teacher facilitates a debrief where students discuss what strategies they used and why.
Mr. Pruner tends not to give repetitive homework assignments, but instead talked about how he uses journaling extensively to reflect on students’ thinking, and end of term assignments. He provides the students with resources they can use if they want to practice or read up on the task further. He says that this is part of the students taking ownership of their learning, and developing intrinsic motivation. I liked the idea of taking pictures of the boards when students were finished, and helping them create portfolios of their thinking. Mr. Pruner said that at the end of a unit or term, the students would get to choose one of the problems, and do a more extensive assignment on it. He showed us some of the creative ways in which the students demonstrated their learning. I appreciate the methodology in that it illuminates student process, and encourages students to talk out the problems.
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