Literacy and math. Who would have ever thought they work together so perfectly. Not I that's for sure. When I saw the title of this course I'll be honest is saying that I was bracing myself for a long semester of enduring a class I didn't think I'd get a lot out of. Sure I knew there were opportunities to teach literacy in math but I thought math was so different and so foreign to most education professors that it would barely be touched upon. I am happy to report that I couldn't have been more wrong.
There are so many opportunities to teach literacy in math that I don't even know where to start. I'd have to say that the thing I hope to apply from this course to my own classroom is creating a math library. I was blown away with how many absolutely fascinating and downright cool books there are about math. Everything from elementary to college level books that are actually interesting. I loved building my text set as well as hearing about the books that the other math teachers mentioned. As a lifelong reader I have found a way to work another of my passions, math, into it. I plan on highlighting these math books in my teaching as well as using them for ideas on presenting material. I'm excited to see how large my library will grow and hope my students will utilize them as the great resources they are.
I have also had my eyes opened to ways that writing can be effectively integrated into a mathematics classroom. I think pre-writing is something that could be used to gauge a student's background knowledge on a topic at the beginning of a unit. I also think that articulating mathematical principles in writing is a difficult skill to develop but an important one nonetheless. I know my skills in that area didn't really develop until college and I regret that. There is something about putting words on paper that really forces you to understand what you're talking about. Otherwise the writing just sounds really bad. I want to have my students write during their assignments and tests in order to truly get a feel for what they know.
Finally I've learned not to criticize it until you've tried it. What I mean by this I that I didn't think I'd get much out of many of the assignments we did in class. But I actually learned the most about my content, strengths and weaknesses, as well as my teaching style by writing lesson plans. Some were easy and some were not. But actually having to incorporate real mathematical principles with good literacy practices was a great experience. They taught me that teaching literacy in math doesn't have to be a huge, drawn out process. Rather, it's just in the small things I do as a teacher that will have a big impact on the literacy achievement of my students. A comment here, a small writing activity here and special attention to how I introduce new words and almost any math lesson can become a literacy building lesson as well. I never would have seen that without getting my hands a little dirty with it.
Overall I really enjoyed the course and felt that math was given just as much attention as any other subject, which I've found to be rare. I enjoyed the hands on lessons and the opportunities to collaborate with peers from my own discipline. I've definitely come to see that there really is literacy beyond the numbers.
I just read Andy and Francisca's self-selected projects, and they talked about an agriculture teacher who had a great classroom library and his students would just automatically go there and start reading (without being asked) when they were done with assignments.
ReplyDeleteI can envision you as being the same kind of teacher, where your students have access to lots of high-interest texts (digital and printed) that they can visit when they are done with assignments. That is one way, among many others, that you can show students how "cool" and useful math is.
And thanks for being willing to get your hands dirty this semester! :) I learned a lot from your lesson plans as well.