Mistakes are Good!

For so long now, mistakes have gotten a bad rap.
It's like we are conditioned to try to not make a mistake.
When in reality, mistakes are how we learn.
We have all made mistakes.
And we all will continue to make mistakes.
For. As. Long. As. We. Live.

So instead of looking at mistakes as an embarrassment, something to avoid, or something that makes us want to stop altogether,
We need to understand mistakes.

And that's what we did today as we started class.

Students were to write how they felt when they goofed up, made a mistake, or failed at something on one side of the paper.
After our thoughts were down on paper, I had the students crumple the paper up, signifying that how we once thought of mistakes should just be thrown away.

I had them uncrumple the paper to show all the crinkles.
We had a very mini lesson on brain research and how when a mistake is made, it actually creates a synapse, strengthening neural pathways in the learning process.
Students then traced the creases to illustrate how synapses are created when we goof up.

As part of our ISN (Interactive Student Notebook), the right hand side of the notebook is for student output (think guided practice, reflection, questions, to do's, etc).  Today, they were to respond to the statement, "How I will look at mistakes from this point forward."  It will take some time to retrain our brain, we will make mistakes as we fall back into old habits, but my hope is at the end we find ourselves embracing mistakes as part of the learning process!

Moving Our Thinking in 2016-2017!!

McCabe’s Math Classes:

Where we AIM high and MOVE our thinking

2016-2017

Expectations for Mathematics…8 Habits To Make Math Easier!

1. Perseverance – Make sense of a problem and stick to it!
2. Reason
3. Communication – Construct and justify
4. Apply math through math models
5. Use appropriate tools
6. Precision – Vocabulary, computation, units of measurement…
7. Look for patterns
8. Look for structure

Math Notebooks – To record our MATH CONVERSATIONS

Your math 3-ring notebook will be set up in units.  Each unit will have: 

     ~ notes, handouts/worksheets, and practice

Your interactive math composition notebook will be set up with a table of contents and will include:

       ~ graphic organizers, vocabulary, & a journal of your learning

Keep your math notebook complete until THE END OF THE YEAR.

Expectations for MOVING YOUR THINKING…

• CHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE, so you can MOVE YOUR THINKING.

          Attitude is almost EVERYTHING! A study of 3000 top achievers found that 85% attributed               their success to attitude!

• MAKE THEIR DAY!  Be respectful at all times to others in the  classroom.

• Mistakes are encouraged…they help us MOVE OUR THINKING.
• When we FAIL we are really just showing that it was our First Attempt In Learning.

• BE PRESENT…this includes completing assignments, studying for tests, and coming to class prepared.

          Bring to class every day:  pencil,  Math notebook,  pen,  CALCULATOR, and AR Book

• INTERJECT FUN…this creates energy to MOVE YOUR THINKING

  Grades

  Grades will be taken from a variety of areas:

• Quizzes/Tests
• Projects with rubrics
• Practice
• Problems
• Participation

Practice Completion:  All practice items MUST BE completed by the next day for a 100% completion grade.

Show ALL your work.  Try EVERY problem. 

LATE/MISSING WORK

Students may complete late/missing practice problems BEFORE the unit quiz for 75%.

Late work will NOT be accepted after the unit quiz.

QUIZ RETAKES

To be eligible for a quiz retake, all practice must be completed before the unit quiz.

Need Help at Home?  We’re Online!!!

Schoology has a ton of resources!  

* Lesson videos 

* Assignments 

* Link to online textbook with even more helpful websites

That was Punny...No Pun Intended!

I never know when it will hit, but here lately, we have had some pretty good puns in our math classroom.
Oh sure, it all started at the beginning of the year when after introducing our Fish! philosophy and how it ties to learning math, and I just happened to say, "If you are floundering with this math problem..."

I got it.
No one else did.
But it did crack me up.

Yesterday, when playing Battleship with my 2nd hour folks, I noticed that their strategy was totally different than mine.  I was using the coordinate graph to help guide my "torpedo lines" and they were just adjusting the equations from previous attempts.  Ever being the helpful math teacher that I am, even though I was losing, I thought I would share what I had noticed.  What came out of my mouth was totally unintended but literally had me in stitches.  "You guys are totally missing the boat here.  How can the coordinate graph help when firing your torpedos?"  Did you catch it?  No one else did either.  Miss the boat?  We are playing battleship...trying to sink boats.  Hahahaha!!!

Folding Paper Leads to Negative Exponents

Dragonbox

We're so busy playing the game we have absolutely no idea we are learning math!

FISH!, Dots, and the Big Bang

This week in math has been stuffed with preparations for our new year.

FISH!
Students learned about the FISH! philosophy used in Pike's Place Fish Market in Seattle, WA.
Pike's Place Fish market is World Famous because of their philosophy of
     1) Choosing Your Attitude
     2) Having Fun
     3) Being There for Others
     4) Being in the Moment

The student's challenge was to take the 4 points of the philosophy and identify ways those would look like in our math classroom.

Pre-Diagnostic Tests
In the middle of the week we buckled down to take the pre-diagnostic test.
This necessary "evil" allows me a glimpse into their math world so I can get a head start of understanding their strengths and weaknesses as I plan my lessons.
It also gives them a benchmark score to compare to at the end of the year so they can see how far they have come in their math learning!

Dots
Students had to tell me how many dots were in the shape without counting them.  As students began to justify their thinking in how they saw the dots, it quickly became apparent that although there was just one correct answer, there were a lot of ways to get there.  Our math class is structured in this exact way.  We encourage multiple methods of solving a problem to help everyone learn and move their thinking.

Perseverance
Math is necessary.  Math is fun.  But math can also be challenging.  When those stumbling blocks get in our way, it is necessary to persevere through to make sense of the problem.  This short clip from the "Big Bang Theory" demonstrates what perseverance looks like in action.  It also brought in our four FISH! philosophy components: 1) They had positive attitudes about the process.  If they had had a bad attitude, they would have given up.  2) The video was fun to watch and the music added to the message.  3) When Raj had a headache, Sheldon not only told him where the aspirin was but asked if he was all right.  Serving Others.  4) They were in the moment.  For a long long time.