New Curriculum in Maple Ridge January 28, 2008

Hello to all the primary teachers who spent the day with me today.  Thank you all for opening yourselves to thinking about the operations in a new way, and to considering how having a range of strategies for finding the sum or difference will impact the students we work with and care for… I wanted to attach some materials for you – to make it easier to find what you came here for!  First, the Big Red Bus master can be downloaded by clicking here:  Big Red Bus. 

Spectrum is the place to go for the number balance and the magnetic counters. You’ll want to check out these personal strategies for subtraction, explained from Van de Walle and try some of the games from the Math Tool Kits (a great thing to send home with parents) to practice the basics and to promote the mathematical processes we discussed today.  

Once again, please remember that this pedagogical and content-based change is a journey and that we are embarking on it together, one small step at a time…Carole 

Elluminate Session – Join in! January 8, 2008

Hello all!  Welcome back to the new term!  
I hope everyone got some rest and some time with friends and family this holiday season…  Heaven knows we’ll all need it to keep up with our students!

I wanted to invite you to join me on-line for part one of a 2-part series of professional learning sessions devoted to promoting engagement – and deep learning – in the math classroom.  The session is being hosted by LearnNowBC and more specifically the Rural Schools Network of BC, as a follow-up to Faye Brownlie’s plenary at the Rural Schools Conference here in Richmond in October.  During the interactive session I’ll be connecting to Faye’s big ideas of the key elements of learning, namely connections, talk and engagement, and showing student samples from my work in the province.

 All are welcome to attend through the Elluminate Live service.  It allows you to text-chat, audio chat and use shared tools like a whiteboard to record your ideas and talk to others across BC. (pretty cool, huh?)  The session starts at 3:30 pm and runs to 5:00 pm on Monday, January 14th.  It’s a good idea to log in about 10 minutes early to get yourself configured and play around on the site.  There’s tech support that will help you before the session starts, too, so you can get a handle on the features.  Of course you are welcome to just sit and listen, but it’s always more fun to engage with the problems and ideas presented…  :o)

You can also view the archived sessions after the fact (along with those done by Lori Drussy on Talk in Language Arts, and the session hosted by Janice Novakowski – my colleague and friend – on Science and Inquiry) so if you can’t make the session, feel free to download it later!

Here’s the link to join the session.  

The site is open an hour beforehand.  
Hope to see you there!
Carole