Mathematicians In the Classroom

This topic for my blog came to me during a three day professional development in mathematics.  How do we get students to be Mathematicians?  Its simple! Its about getting students to invent strategies that they have discovered while solving a series of problems.  But how do we get students to invent these strategies?  For a long time now, the way we tell students to multiply fractions together is straight across the top and straight across the bottom.  But WHY does this work? Many students do not know the answer to this question.  If we are not letting students explore and discover these strategies to solve problems are they really learning math or are they just applying what they were told.  

If you want your students to learn about area, perimeter, and volume, how would we do this?  Give them the formulas of each and let them solve problems on paper? But what happens when they ask where did the formula come from.  Why not give them a problem with numbers and tell them that we want to find the area, perimeter or volume and let them explore inventing the formula for each. This would give them more ownership over using the formulas in the future and have an understanding of why the formulas work the way that they do.  Students should be able to answer the question why in mathematics! 

Welcome to MELS!!!

For my grad course this week we were to play with iMovie or another movie maker program. I chose to use iMovie and created a short movie about my school. Its short and sweat but I like it!  For my first time using iMovie I think it went well and is a really easy program to use! Hope you enjoy

Stop. Shut Down. Think & Explore!

In my most recent grad course, my professor mentioned that sometimes you just need to unplug from the world for a day! The next day during my professional development we were reading samples essays to an argumentative writing prompt, where the topic was if their school should participate in the national "Shut Down Your Screen" week. This got me thinking! Have you ever bin in a public place and just looked around?  I have, what I notice is people are more engaged in their devices then the conversation they could have with the person/people they are with.  I believe that it is important to teach students that you do not need to be 'plugged in' every minute of the day.  In the article "Attached to Technology and Paying a Price" written by Matt Richtel it states, "Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information." Take a second and think about this.  The ability to focus had a large impact on our lives.  It is one of the most important skills that we depend on everyday.  If we lose focus while performing an important task such as operating machinery, or driving motor vehicles, we could harm others or ourselves.  If we do no teach students now how to think critically and focus, the future will be much different.

"New technology is common, new thinking is rare." -Sir Peter Blake 

My Students Surprise me Everyday!!!

For my fist blog post I thought I would share with you an experience I had with my students on Friday.  I opened my door to let my class go, and the next one in.  As I open the door my first thought, "Why are there so many kids by my door?". Second thought, "Is someone going to fight? Oh no I got to get out there". As I exit my room trying to figure out whats going on, one of my students standing in front of me says, Ms. Polzella I need to ask you a really important question.  With a confused look on my face, he gets down on one knee and reads a speech that he prepared.  I can't remember exactly what he said, but he asked if I would be the other half to his whole. And he even had a ring made out the those colored elastic bands.  I was flattered but I had to say no!  I gave him mad props for adding in that math joke, 'the other half to his whole'.  At least I know he knows his fractions! This student did it as a joke, but never in a million years, did I think this would happen in the 7th grade.  I mean when I worked with preschools this would happen every other day. It was cute! My students surprise me everyday of the week.  Just another day in the classroom.