When is it okay to use a calculator?

David Coffey — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:51:45 +0100

All too often, I run into teachers (both preservice and inservice) lamenting that kids are using calculators to compute something simple, like 6 x 7. These teachers express their frustration by threatening to not let kids use any calculators until the kids prove that they know their facts. And there will be no calculators for any simple computations. I understand this thinking but I am not sure it will achieve the desired result - wise calculator use (i.e. phronesis).

Sooner or later, the cups draw a learner's attention and the question is asked: "What are these for?" Which is closely followed by, "Is it some sort of stop light?"

Can we just flip the homework?

David Coffey — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:49:21 +0100

The lesson has been taught and there are a few minutes remaining in the class period. Of course, this means that students can get a head start on their homework. I sit in on a lot of lessons in my role as an instructional coach for preservice and inservice teachers and the scene is nearly always the same. As I walk around the class during these final minutes, I typically see the following:

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...

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