Blog entries

When do we stop chewing their food?

David Coffey — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:54:51 +0100

The birds have found the feeder. We moved it and a suet holder closer to the house this winter since the trees that used to shelter them were cut down over the summer. I was afraid that their proximity to the house might frighten the birds, but it has not been a problem. In fact, it has made it easier to watch the birds as they feed.

During the spring and summer, I watched as the adult birds fed the babies. The adults would grab food from the feeder and place it in the mouths of the bRead More...

Who controls the volume?

David Coffey — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:54:44 +0100

For that special date 11-11-11, NPR's All Songs Considered did a podcast based on the this clip from This is Spinal Tap.

No surprise - my thoughts went to education. I wondered about the ways I try to turn my teaching volume up to eleven. There are certainly times in my classroom where I want to REALLY impress upon my learners the importance of what we are exploring. While this might result in literally turning up the volume, it is more likely to manifest itself in elaborate Read More...

Whose problem is it?

David Coffey — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:28:53 +0100

"Education systems, teachers, school districts all over the world are going crazy about problem-based learning - nothing like a good problem to solve. But they are looking at the wrong bit of it. The thing we're neglecting is to find a generation of problem finders."

The above quote comes early in Ewan McIntosh's talk at TEDxLondon. This really connects with my goal to foster sustainable learning. Here is the entire talk (it is well worth the eight minutes).

I want learnRead More...

What is your problem? Part III

David Coffey — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:50:30 +0100

Previously in this series, I shared about action plans (here) and how one teacher used an action plan and observation to improve her use of questions in assessing learners (here). In this post, I provide another example - this time focusing on evaluation. (I have explained before that our framework treats assessment and evaluation as different phases of the Teaching-Learning Cycle.)

I received the following email that I would like to share with the greater public community. The announcement of Matt's Safe School Law brings to fruition the work of many child and student advocates who would like to bring an end to bullying as documented in my blog from March 2, 2011 and told in a summary that I provided in the Fall 2008 issue of Colleagues magazine (pp. 8-9).

The announcement of signing Matt's Read More...

What is your problem? Part II

David Coffey — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 20:03:36 +0100

In this series of posts, I want to share an approach we use with student teachers to support their development as reflective practitioners. The first post introduced the idea of using an action plan as a way for teachers to identify an area of challenge and seek out support. In subsequent posts, I plan to share examples of this approach in action.

After reading a teacher's action plan, I assemble any resources that might come in handy and then head to the observation. During the lessoRead More...

What is your problem? Part I

David Coffey — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:31:51 +0100

My problem is that I tend to teach as I was taught. I know that research shows that I am not alone in this, but I thought I had gotten over this hurdle. Since 1990, I have been teaching math differently - and I have the student comments and parent phone calls to prove it. The changes I made as a math teacher were one of the reasons I became interested in mathematics education. Unfortunately, these changes did not transfer to all aspects of my teaching.

Early in my career as a math eRead More...

Is it real?

David Coffey — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:58:13 +0100

Today, part 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is available in stores. When the movie opened in theaters this past July, I used it as an opportunity to write about teaching as storytelling. In this post, I want to take a look at a particular exchange between two main characters and consider what it might mean for teaching and learning mathematics. Warning - spoilers ahead.

Phronesis - What is it?

David Coffey — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:54:32 +0100

This was the question guest host, Susan Page, asked author, Eric Greitens, on an episode of The Diane Rehm Show. Greitens responded:

"Phronesis is so interesting because it's a concept that we really don't have a word for in English. You could say that it's something like common sense, but it is really more than that. What phronesis means is practical wisdom. And phronesis is the ability to both figure out what to do in any given moment while also knowing what is worth doing. So theRead More...

Metacognitive Memoirs - what are they?

David Coffey — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:45:11 +0100

At the recent Mathematical Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association [MCATA] Conference, I facilitated the following workshop: Making Mathematical Thinking Visible - Metacognitive Memoirs. Here is the workshop's description:

This was a breakout session based on a portion of my earlier keynote.

Schema Activation: Cambourne's Conditions of Learning [10 minutes]

In an effort to connect to their prior learning, participants looked over Figure 1 from Cambourne's Read More...

Now What? Part IV

David Coffey — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 02:50:56 +0100

So far in this series I have discussed the need to empower learners by getting them to ask and explore their own "Now what?" questions (here), considered possible answers to a messy learner-generated word problem (here), and identified implicit conditions associated with the different answers (here). In this final post of the series, I share my preservice teachers' efforts to extend our understanding of one of the possible answers to this word problem:

Three of the possible responseRead More...

English Learning: EFL, TESOL, ESL?

Nagnon Diarrassouba — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:48:42 +0100

One of the former teacher candidates in the GVSU TESOL program once remarked that TESL and TESOL programs in the US do not prepare students for teaching overseas. Our conversation turned around what makes teaching English overseas different from teaching the same language in the United states. What is your opinion on the issue. Do TESOL/TESL institutions in the United States prepare its candidate for teaching overseas?

&nbsRead More...

Now What? Part III

David Coffey — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:50:14 +0100

Thus far we have considered ways middle school learners can extend their learning by generating their own problems based on young adult literature (here) and how preservice teachers can extend their understanding by considering alternative solutions (here). Given the four different answers they usually come up with (1/15, 1/30, 1/21, and 1/36), the preservice teachers attempt to revise the original problem to match each answer.

In the Community, you get two pets. The Elders pick the pets for each family. There were six choices of pets to have: dog, cat, fish, snake, bird, and hamster. What was the probability of gettinRead More...

Teens With an Ax to Grind

Kathryn Coffey — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 03:21:35 +0100

In the spring of 2005, when my youngest son A.J. took our state's high-stakes standardized test, the MEAP, (now the MME) he had an ax to grind. Unfortunately, no one really knew how angry he was until after he took the exam. I received a call from the principal requesting a meeting.

It seems that my son had chosen to draw a very large and detailed fist with an extended middle finger where his science graph should have been. And, he chose to bubble in his multiple-choice answer sheet wRead More...

Now What? Part I

David Coffey — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 21:50:08 +0100

Learners who lose the ability to make decisions are disempowered.

Brain Cambourne

This quote comes from Cambourne's theory of learning as it relates to responsibility. I see this "disempowerment" in the secondary math classes that I observe and the college courses that I teach. Students are constantly waiting for someone else, usually the teacher, to tell them what to do. The time when this is most evident is when a studentRead More...

What would Charlie Brown do?

David Coffey — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:56:14 +0100

Josh earned $1,962 over the summer. Hilary earned $129 more than Josh during the summer. How much money did Hilary earn over the summer?

When I taught middle school math in the 80s and 90s, this was the type of word "problem" that filled the curriculum my district used. Furthermore, the "problem" was typically at the end of a worksheet entitled Adding with Two Addends that was filled with 12 other addition exercises.

Even back then I knew that these were not true probleRead More...

Is it really about the money?

David Coffey — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:14:57 +0100

US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, was a part of a panel discussion held at the University of Michigan School of Education recently (watch it here). Part way through, the discussion turned to teacher pay and Secretary Duncan again called for a substantial increase in starting teachers' salary. (To be fair, the issue was not raised by the Secretary - see around 46 minutes.) For some reason, the idea that paying teachers more is a solution to our educational issues rubs me the wrong way.

What do you want to know?

David Coffey — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:12:04 +0100

Grand Valley started this week. And, as usual, I began my Introduction to Learning and Assessment course with a workshop called "A Piece of Me" (handout). This involves an activity that was introduced to me over 14 years ago during an Integrated Thematic Instruction class. I wish I could remember the presenters so I could give them credit but that information has long since vanished from my memory and my files. If anyone knows the origin of this activity, please let me know so that I canRead More...

Why all the questions?

David Coffey — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:11:47 +0100

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."

Albert Einstein

By now you may have noticed that each Delta Scape blog post title is in the form of a question. Why is that? I am glad you asked. Like most of what I do as an educator, it is intentional and built around ideas gleaned Read More...