Author: Jon Orr

Spiralling grade 9 applied math

by Jon Orr

So, I’m going to spiral the grade 9 applied course! I’m a little hesitant because I’ve taught this course with a units approach for the last 10 years. But I’m also exited!!! It seems so awesome that everyday we will solve problems; Alex Overwijk says

“learn to uncover curriculum instead of cover curriculum“

Instead of “boring up” the first day with paper and expectations, and policy, etc, etc we talked about being curious, collaborative, creative, and embracing challenge!

Screen Shot 2015-02-04 at 2.15.58 PM

So….we dove right in to this.

Act 1: Showed this:

 

 

  Continue reading →

Ready for round 2?

by Jon Orr

Second semester is starting tomorrow and I just wanted to get down my ideas on things I will be changing and things I will be keeping…..

New things…

I’ll be using the spreadsheet I modified from @alicekeeler. Although I plan on using Kyle Pearce’s further modified version.

I have slightly modified old my assessment approach (again). I’ll share later.

Kyle and I have been Tweeting back and forth all weekend about spiralling our grade 9 applied classes. We have been teaching using an inquiry based approach (4 part math lesson) and thought that spiralling would fit right in. We’ll keep you posted. Here is my day-to-day plan by topic and task, so far .

I’ll Continue….

a ton of stuff….but here are a few

Keeping my students curious.

Strengthening the connection between algebraic representations and graphical representations using Desmos! 

Documenting my class by taking a picture/tweet for every school day.

Warm ups – To start every class we do a warm up / starter. Most of these starters are math related but for me the most important part is that the starters allow our class to “Gel”. My buddy @Regan_bio is an advocate for always saying we should show our students that we are human and remember they are human too. Take the first 5 minutes of class and be a good human with your kids…..maybe they will be more ready to do some math!

Recently Mary Bourassa has shared her great list of daily warm ups for her grade 10 applied class. Check out her warm ups.

Here’s what we have been doing…

Monday’s – Estimation180 – As a class we complete one of these great challenges (10 minutes). We track our progress on Andrew’s / Michael Fenton’s provided handout.

Tuesday’s – Visual Patterns. I choose a pattern for us to determine the equation.

Wednesday’s – Pictionary – Our class is split into two teams. They take turns drawing and guessing objects, sayings, math ideas that I have picked out. Most of the time this is a non math game. (10 minutes)

Thursday’s – Throw Back Thursday — I choose a question / skill that my class has been exposed to in the past and we work on our whiteboards on this as a review question.

Friday’s – 20 Questions. — I pick something and the class has 20 yes or no questions to try and guess what I have picked. We then play a second round where the class together picks something and I try to guess. (10 minutes).

Have an exciting second semester everybody!

Document your days! 180 Photos

by Jon Orr

Since the first day of school I have been documenting my days one picture/tweet at a time. On Sept. 2, 2014 I decided that I

Day 1 - Math is Like....

Day 1 – Math is Like….

would take one picture of something (fun or boring) going on in my classroom each day and upload it here. Now that the semester is over I wanted to reflect on this process.

The simple idea of me just taking a picture keeps me on my toes. It keeps me organized. It keeps me saying “Everyday we should do something great” It keeps me working towards a better learning experience. I’m the one who’s looking over my shoulder!

It started with pictures….but I quickly realized that once I take a picture I could send it to Twitter! This was great because it allowed me to write something quick about the day and saved server space on my website. And with Twitter’s ability to embed a tweet……this became a quick copy and paste routine.

It’s such an easy addition to your teaching and so powerful. Do it now!

Here is my page of pictures/tweets

Day 90

#10GoodThings

by Jon Orr

Around this time of year we get bogged down. The semester is ending, we’re getting our exams in order, EQAO is here, kids are realizing that this is the end too!, extra help sessions at lunch.
I was feeling the crunch a bit this week and then read this post from @stoodle

I thought I would throw a list of my ten good things from 2014 together. It’s good for my self reflection and to remind myself I did some good this semester. I’m going to tag a few teachers on Twitter and challenge them to put a list together.

Here are my ten good things from 2014

1. I’m adaptable. I try lots of new strategies, tools, tech out in class and when something doesn’t go as planned I make do!

2. Students seem to not hate me

3. I’m not afraid of technology. If I see something that will enhance my students’ learning. I’ll give it a shot! My favourite this last semester: @PearDeck

4. My students now use Desmos as part of their vocabulary.

5. My use of open questions gets kids to think first. They try it first —instead of waiting for me to show them.

6. Because of Twitter and my pln I have grabbed lots of ideas and have tons of strategies for lessons.

7. Using estimation180 is making students see reasonableness in their answers. The estimating we do as warm ups is carriying through to solving problems. They are better are judging whether their answer makes sense or not.

8. I love creating three act lessons like here and here. Vowing to do more in 2015!

9. Changing my assessment practices has been working great this year. Mastery of learning and Standards based assessment is my new norm.

10. I’ve always felt that I’m disorganized but the other day my senior class called me the most organized teacher in the school. Maybe they were being sarcastic?

What are your ten good things?