Weekly News Dec 3
Hi All,
PA Day: The staff and I had a wonderful day of learning on Friday. We talked and found a pattern in our thinking. First is that when we think of math, we think in a right/wrong mindset. We generally are afraid of making mistakes so we avoid being wrong and therefore don’t want to take chances in math. Second, one of the best ways to get rid of this anxious feeling of being wrong is to work on our estimating the answer, using language like ‘about how much’, ‘is your answer reasonable’. It is the thinking about how to arrive at the answer that is important. Third, show students that as adults we make mistakes and is ok because we learn from them.
Our school’s focus this year is mathematics, specifically estimation. Why? We want our students to feel confident, safe, and most importantly positive when thinking about math. One of the keys areas to do this is to have students think about math like this, “about how much’, ‘is your answer reasonable’. This helps us to think about the ‘process’ – how do we arrive at an answer vs the product which is just the answer. You can help us out at home. For example, when you’re shopping you can ask, I have $10.00, these two items costs $5.75 and $4.90. About how much money will I need? Do we have enough. Or if your cooking and it asks for a cup, you can ask, ‘is this measurement that we are using about a cup’. So talking with our students about math using the language of, ‘about how much is that’ or ‘is your thinking reasonable’ promotes students to take a risk and not be afraid if the answer is right or wrong.
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