Math in the 21st Century

Nelson Education Textbook [Online Image]. (2016). Retrieved October 3, 2016 from http://www.nelson.com/school/elementary/mathK8/math7/

Who remembers these textbooks?  I think most of us remember lugging these very heavy textbooks home after school, but students in the 21st century are having the luxury of rarely having to.  The way mathematics is being taught to students has dramatically changed since my days in elementary school.  These textbooks are not obsolete, but certainly do not hold the same value as they did 15-20 years ago and this is great news for students.

Teachers still utilize such textbooks however, not in the traditional sense of here's the lesson, here's your example now do questions 1-7.  Teachers gather ideas, and concepts form these books and may even photo copy a couple pages, but rather, students are now being more interactive with their learning of mathematics.  Prodigy is an excellent example of how mathematics is changing within schools- a game based learning tool that engages students in math problems while battling each other online.  Check it out at https://www.prodigygame.com/

I've seen this higher interactivity of math within the past 3 years of volunteer teaching and most recently in my grade 7/8 placement class.  Last week we looked at integers- a common area of struggle for students.  Knowing this, my associate teacher provided students with a couple of ways to tackle integers that are more interactive and collaborative. 

[Untitled illustration of integer game].
Retrieved October 3, 2016 from Chelsea's Iphone

The lesson began with a quick game and  these arethe general rules.

 1.  Students were given numbers and stuck to their backs

2.  Students were required to go around the question asking only yes or no questions to figure out their number (i.e am I a positive or negative number)

3.  Once students figured out their numbers, they placed them on the number line to provide a visual for visual learners.

[Untitled illustration of number line]. Retrieved October 3, 2016 from Chelsea's Iphone

At this point, you can proceed with more examples (if I have 5 positives and 4 negatives, what am I left with).  The next activity was beneficial for the kinesthetic learners of the class.  Each student was given yellow and red tokens (red was positive and yellow was negative).  Next, the students were prompted to create numbers using their tokens- I.e. show me -9, 5, 1 etc.

[Untitled illustration of colored blocks]. Retrieved October 3, 2016 from Chelsea's Iphone

After conducting this lesson there was one thing that I noticed and that was that some kids were more engaged with the lesson than others.  As I walked around the classroom I noticed that it was mostly the grade 8's who were not as keen on the lesson as others were.  Some of them put the blocks aside and used their notebooks instead. 

After my own math class this week, I learned that some students just prefer different techniques and that's alright.  Maybe this lesson was too elementary for them or maybe they prefer to learn by writing things down, in any case as long as they are participating in the practice portion of the lesson then that's alright!

The Toronto Star also reported on this issue in a recent article titled "No, teaching the old fashioned way won't work."  Author, Paul Wells, speaks of the recent EQAO testing results and recommends a change in curricula to teach this flexibility within the classroom.  This is a great article that reflects and highlights on the detriments of having a fixed mindset when teaching "the old fashioned way." 

Intro to Negative Numbers [Online Image]. (2016). Retrieved October 3, 2016 from http://bit.ly/2dndgwO