Quadratics Day 2: Planning an entire unit with Cultures of Thinking in mind
Jeffrey Watson | Secondary mathematics blog
by
11M ago
  As I contemplated what to have the students do after their 'Polygraph: Parabolas' activity on Day 1 (see Day 1 post here), I needed to take inventory of what the students learned up to this point.  I tried making a list, and then realized that it would be better if the students made the list instead.  This led me to the new thinking routine, the '+1 Routine', under development for the Making Thinking Visible 2.0 book, which is under development by Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church of the Project Zero team at Harvard University. The routine goes something like this: ​R ..read more
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Quadratics Day 3: Planning an entire unit with Cultures of Thinking in mind
Jeffrey Watson | Secondary mathematics blog
by
11M ago
  Microlab Protocol The home thinking that the students had to do at the end of day 2 was the following: What effect do the values of a, h, & k have on the graph of y = a(x-h)^2+k? Identify the vertex on slides 2,4,5,6,8,10 in the Marbleslides desmos activity.  Plot the vertex in desmos.  How does the vertex relate to the vertex form of the equation on each slide? The students turned in their documentation of their thinking as they walked in to class.  I looked at it briefly, checked that they completed it, and then handed it back to them.  I used the "Team Shak ..read more
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Quadratics Day 4: Using Cultures of Thinking to plan an entire unit.
Jeffrey Watson | Secondary mathematics blog
by
11M ago
  Before we embark on day 4, here is a quick summary of the first three days of the unit: Day 1: The students used Desmos polygraph to discuss the vocabulary surrounding the graphs of quadratics. Day 2: We used the +1 Routine to generate all of our thinking about parabolas and quadratics.   This led to the Desmos marble slides activity where the students wrote equations of quadratic functions in vertex form in order to generate graphs that 'catch' stars. Day 3: The students continued the marble slides activity by plotting the vertex on each page of the activity, converting the e ..read more
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Quadratics Day 2: Planning an entire unit with Cultures of Thinking in mind
Jeffrey Watson | Secondary mathematics blog
by
2y ago
  As I contemplated what to have the students do after their 'Polygraph: Parabolas' activity on Day 1 (see Day 1 post here), I needed to take inventory of what the students learned up to this point.  I tried making a list, and then realized that it would be better if the students made the list instead.  This led me to the new thinking routine, the '+1 Routine', under development for the Making Thinking Visible 2.0 book, which is under development by Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church of the Project Zero team at Harvard University. The routine goes something like this: ​R ..read more
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Learning to Learn
Jeffrey Watson | Secondary mathematics blog
by
3y ago
One of my senior students, Vaishnavi Katta, asked if she could write a guest post on my educational blog.  I very enthusiastically said 'absolutely!'  She talks here about classroom environment, and its effect on learning.  Enjoy!  Jeff Watson Hello, my name is Vaishnavi and I recently finished with my senior year. Having recently wrapped up 13 years of education at home has got me thinking about the importance of a classroom’s environment in learning. Now more than ever, I realize the value of interaction between students in an educational setting. An interaction I believe ..read more
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Learning to Learn
Jeffrey Watson | Secondary mathematics blog
by
4y ago
One of my senior students, Vaishnavi Katta, asked if she could write a guest post on my educational blog.  I very enthusiastically said 'absolutely!'  She talks here about classroom environment, and its effect on learning.  Enjoy!  Jeff Watson Hello, my name is Vaishnavi and I recently finished with my senior year. Having recently wrapped up 13 years of education at home has got me thinking about the importance of a classroom’s environment in learning. Now more than ever, I realize the value of interaction between students in an educational setting. An interaction I believe ..read more
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Changing a teacher-centered lesson into a student-centered lesson using the Cultures of Thinking framework
Jeffrey Watson | Secondary mathematics blog
by
4y ago
Figure 1: One version of the compass points routine My colleague, Roger Winn, and I presented at the IB Global Conference held in New Orleans from July 24th - 28th, 2019.  Our session had two goals: 1) to have attendees revise a current lesson that is more teacher-centered into one that is student-centered using the Cultures of Thinking framework, and 2) to have the attendees experience what it is like to be in a student-centered classroom by running our session as we run our classrooms in Michigan. ​We started out the session by utilizing the Compass points thinking routin ..read more
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What is Cultures of thinking, and will it work in a Math classroom?
Jeffrey Watson | Secondary mathematics blog
by
4y ago
Cultures of Thinking is an educational framework developed by the Project Zero team at Harvard University.  The framework brings to light the eight cultural forces that are at play in our classrooms: Expectations, Language, Time, Opportunities, Routines, Environment, Interactions, and Modeling.  These forces are at play in every classroom; CoT provides tools for the teacher to properly harness these forces to produce 21st century, globally minded learners and thinkers.   Teachers can use a variety of methods to create a Culture of Thinking in their classrooms, such as allowing critical time w ..read more
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Fostering quality interactions in the classroom.
Jeffrey Watson | Secondary mathematics blog
by
4y ago
Recently, my colleague, Roger Winn, and I published our second article in the educational journal, "Creative Teaching & Learning" based in the UK.  I have attached the article below.  Please read and provide feedback ..read more
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Quadratics Day 1: Planning an entire unit with Cultures of Thinking in mind
Jeffrey Watson | Secondary mathematics blog
by
4y ago
  This blog is re-posted from November, 2017. I have been teaching for quite a while and have taught units on quadratics more times than I can count.  The concepts of vertex, line of symmetry, factoring, quadratic formula, and intercepts were frequently discussed, often times in more than one class.  More often than not, when I was a 'section' teacher, I followed the current textbook's recipe on how to do this.  The current textbook I am working with lays it out like this: Section 1: Graphing quadratic functions Section 2: Translating parabolas Section 3: Solving equations using square roots ..read more
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