One last reminder that next week on Tuesday, September 22, at 6:30 pm I will be holding our GT Back-to-School Night at Werner in the media center. I hope to see many of you to share information about the gifted program here at Werner. If you cannot make it, my Power Point presentation for the evening is on the GT Information page of this website. Feel free to take a peek at it and email me or call with questions. Students in my math classes are responsible for learning the Colorado Academic standards. Tied within Colorado's standards are the Common Core standards. But in addition to these standards that are based on the academic expectations for each grade level, there are also Mathematical Practice Standards which are the skills that teachers want students to also have to help them be critical thinkers and problem solvers in the math classroom. Here is a quick graphic glimpse of those standards: During lessons, I try to make sure that I am using at least one of these practice standards as part of the day's instruction, in addition to the learning target based on the academic standard that we are covering. Just this last week, the 4th grade math students were looking at how to identify different types of triangles. They were given a triangle that they had to identify with two names (one based on side lengths and one based on angle measures.) Students had to partner up and argue their findings. Their partner was expected to critique their reasoning. I have spent time teaching the kids how to question a partner and push their thinking (not just nod in agreement) - really make them justify what they know and use precise math language and vocabulary. The pictures below are some of the partners helping each other get smarter... Lastly for this week, unfortunately I had to be gone from Werner for the last two days. Fortunately, I had a good reason. I am representing the gifted students' needs in Poudre on the district's Math Adoption committee. It has been about 12+ years since we have adopted new curriculum in Fort Collins, so it is time. The last two days we have been looking at 12+ different publishers' materials to see how it meets the standards and needs of our students here. We worked to narrow the choices down to three and will be having opportunities for teachers on the committee to try them in their classrooms and also put materials out for the community to see and provide feedback. If you would like to see what goes into this process or are interested in the district's choices so far, PSD has set up a website to keep the community informed. https://sites.google.com/a/psdschools.org/psd-mathematics/elementary-school/e-artifacts
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Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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