Minds on Mathematics: Chapter 3 (Tasks)

So I'm back from a fantabulous trip to Alaska and am feeling quite refreshed!  The bad thing about coming back from vacation is you have no excuse to not think about work-related things.  That being said… time to catch up on the Minds on Mathematics book study!!

My favorite line in this chapter is, "Struggle is central to growth; when we wrestle to make sense, our hard-won comprehension will not easily be lost or forgotten."  This is SO true and is something I struggle with daily in my classrooms.  It is easy, as a teacher, to stand up and lecture, especially when we "get it".  Why don't they all get it??  We think we have great ways to present things, we give meaningful examples, and we ask students to practice.  Yet many of them still leave our classrooms wondering what they've learned.  I liked this chapter because it addresses this issue that I think many of us want to deal with but may not know how.

(Note: Hoffer mentions Understanding by Design (1998) by Wiggins and McTighe.  I've read this and used it in a graduate class and it has become my main resource for backwards planning.  It's an easy read and a great book to have in your own teaching library.  I highly recommend taking a look.)

Hoffer discusses our need as a teacher to cover all of the material, which I can certainly relate to.  I do feel pressure from the direction of the state tests to get everything completed before March, simply so my students have seen everything.  However, I'd really like to work deeper rather than give a one-day overview.  I think that to do this, we need to get away from students getting it "right" to students working through longer and more complicated tasks - "higher cognitive demand"!

I think there will end up being a lot of front-loading with developing these types of tasks, but it will be worth it.  I appreciate all of the graphics the author includes with examples of questions and different cognitive levels.  Now I guess I'll need to get back to work… vacation is over!

Whale watching was awesome!

Holding a 29-day old sled dog at the Seavey's - this year's Iditarod winner. 

"Booty Bear" - gave us a great show in Denali National Park.