Compelling Reason

What's your compelling reason?

The video in this blog was lovely and heart warming. As the author of this blog said it made him think about what is his compelling reason. I especially liked when he said "A reminder . . . when you have a compelling reason, you can learn anything."  This makes me think about my compelling reason for my learning. I am currently learning sign language and so often people ask me about why I do this as it is done in my own time every week. I have always enjoyed learning languages and am determined this time to learn for longer and carry on to master to a certain degree. I have found that teaching the children sign language gives me pleasure which helps in my journey to learn it. Another reason I do it is for the joy I have in communicating with deaf people and other people who use this way to communicate.

As to other areas of my learning I don't think I would be teaching if I didn't enjoy learning as that is the cool thing about teaching as you have to keep moving forward by learning. However I am not sure I have one inspiration as to why I learn and grow I just enjoy learning.  I am always keen to be a better teacher who can inspire children. I do know this, that I try to share that I am a learner and this I think helps them to realise that we are all learners.

"When you find your own inspiration to learn and grow, it is often that modeling that will help our students do the same" quote from article.

Maths- PD- Wendy Dent

After reading the Boaler book it was great to get the opportunity to attend the Wendy Dent Workshop.  I had been questioning how this looks in the classroom and how they manage the programme. She shared some results indicating that the children's national standard results improved by using this approach to maths, for at least the older children.
I agree that maths talk is important and it really does improve the depth of the children's understanding. While observing at the school it was clear that there had been some guidelines set with children in how to work with their math buddy. There were posters and reflective questions that were used to guide the math sessions.
The children were in pairs mainly on our observations which I thought did allow the children to confidently share their math thinking and not get lost in a group. I liked when children shared their work and they had set it so that one speaks and the other child writes. Hopefully by doing it this way will ensure that each child has the opportunty to both be heard.
From attending this workshop I plan to work on giving the children more opportunities to experience working with someone of a different ability on a word problem. I need to work hard on setting up systems with children sharing and asking questions some of the posters and reflective questions will help.
I found that this school on whole teach by this problem solving way. However some classes appeared to have worked on some aspects of maths and had teaching moments. You would need to do this I think as the children would be limited to the strategies they could use if they didn't know them.

Maths is the hidden secret to understanding the world

Maths


Intitally I thought this video is not going to help me in my teaching, but actually I was wrong. It fitted in with the book I recently read on Maths. It talks about showing things in different ways and he gives an example of 4/3 and how this can be represented in many different ways. I thought this was interesting as it made me think about the importance of the children showing problems and mathematical situations in different ways. With the help of working in different abiltiy groups this could help as the children will bring their different ideas. An important part that needs to be remembered is that by representing a math problem in different ways can really help to show the understanding they have.

This guy showed a huge passion for maths and he talks about using imagination and changing your perspective which leads to showing empathy.

Conclusion- Understanding something really deeply has to do with changing your perspective. When you are studying maths changing your perspective can help you be open to new ideas