In Response to an Edublogger

Although I am really not a huge fan of blogs, searching for various edubloggers was interesting, because many of them offer interesting and engaging ideas for teaching your subject, or relevant and useful resources for the same thing. The two edublogs I ended up commenting on were based around mathematics instruction. The first discussed a possible solution to the question, "When will we use this in our real lives?" a very real and regular concern of students in mathematics, which we cannot always respond to with an answer that is deemed "good enough" for students or parents. In this blog, the author suggests changing up the way we teach mathematics, even hinting that the Common Core State Standards consider such a revision to their official document.

What the recommended change was was adding coding to regular mathematics curriculum. This was argued, because coding requires the same type of problem solving that we often stress in a mathematics classroom, and no matter what the topic, this skill is what we are attempting to teach our students. I realize sometimes it seems like it, but our goal is not to bore our students with memorization of useless equations, and I think the first blog I read expressed this well. The author made sure to emphasize that this did not necessarily mean teaching a coding language, such as Python or C++, but rather considering things like programming a calculator to automatically perform the quadratic equation, ridding of the burden on students to perform such procedural knowledge. The author provided other examples of how to apply coding in mathematics curriculum, even suggesting that this topic be introduced to students in elementary school!

What I particularly appreciated about this blog post was that the author said all this knowing that not all math teachers necessarily have strong backgrounds in computer science or coding, but suggested that it was something we could easily be trained in to teach. Perhaps this could mean that some computer science course should be required of those who want to obtain a teaching major in mathematics. I asked the author their opinion on this topic.
Coding in Mathematics Education Blog Post

The second edublogger I read and commented on provided this really simple, but useful quiz/game tool to use in the classroom called Kahoot!(https://getkahoot.com/). She briefly explained how the tool worked, and how she used it in her mathematics classes. She also made sure to describe some limitations of the tool, which I found particularly interesting and helpful in her blog post. She talked about how the quiz tool allows you to download the data of your students responses to the quiz questions which acts as a great formative assessment. Another positive aspect of this tool is that students can participate on any apple or android device, or any computer with internet access. I thought this might play well for a situation of BYOT.

When reading this blog, I found that I became very interested in this tool, especially because it was a mathematics teacher discussing how she uses the tool. Before I even finished reading the blog post, I had to check out the tool for myself. And my response to her blog post was basically just my excitement about the tool and appreciation for her description of the tool, because it made it easy to navigate the tool and implement very useful aspects of the technology tool.
Kahoot! in the Classroom Blog

Technology in my Placement

In the Secondary MAC program at the University of Michigan, we were asked to survey our school placements for the use of technology throughout the building. The school I am currently at is considered a high needs school, and is also a charter school, funded by various organizations. Although it is not a public school, the access to technology is fairly limited, which I will explain below. Before actually discussing the availability of technology, I would like to discuss my research process. I would say this began during the professional development at my placement school, when I learned more about the mathematics curriculum, which used computers in the implementation. When the teachers were being trained on implementing the curriculum, we were provided the opportunity to try computer work in one of the high school's two computer labs. There were about 25-30 Apple desktops, which were slow using the internet, and at least 3-4 were not working. Another aspect of my research began even earlier than this.

Before I had actually started my observation at my placement school, I had researched some to try and better understand the environment I was about to enter into for the entire year. I learned that it was a school that valued art, and had heard that there was a particular stress on graphic design, which I thought would require the use of technology. When the school year had started, I found that the two art teachers on my floor (there is one art teacher for each grade level in the high school and middle school), taught mostly with a 2-D medium, such as pencil on paper drawing.I have yet to see students having access to anything other than an Apple computer, usually for research purposes. Perhaps my understanding of graphic design is lacking, but I have only heard rumor of access to tablets for the art classes. Thus, although the school is supposedly known for graphic design, being closely connected to a college specialized in graphic design, the technology available to students is limited.

When I was actually observing in my placement school, there were some other aspects of technology that I noticed as well, such as the spotty internet, and the very restricted WiFi for the school itself. My mentor teacher informed me that although the school had its own internet signal, the free guest signal from the building above the school actually worked better, and that is what I use when I need internet at my placement school. On top of the limited access to technology though, I also had the privilege of being around while a new tech person was hired for the school. Trying to talk to this individual was extremely difficult, because they were constantly running around trying to fix a printer on the second floor, or a projector on the fourth. He was attempting to share his knowledge of technology, while learning about the building he was working in, which is not an easy task.

Although technology is limited, in terms of what is available to students, I was surprised how much the teachers are provided. I guess I am unsure of what is considered normal for secondary education, but each teacher at my placement school received a Mac Pro laptop, as well as an iPhone, that was meant solely for school calls. On top of this, each classroom has its own projector and screen, as well as a classroom telephone for contacting teachers during class. This was interesting to me, because the way the school was built, there was no speaker or P.A. system set up for the classrooms, so individual phone calls is the only way to contact people around the building.

One thing I found particularly interesting was how the mathematics curriculum chosen for the high school relied heavily on the use of computers, as well as having reliable internet access. Technically, the curriculum calls for 60% of the classroom time spent in the classroom, in lecture, while the other 40% is meant for using the online modules to practice skills and deepen their understanding of concepts. I have not been provided the chance to watch students work on the computers, but I know the program is fairly straightforward, and I had heard students were not a fan of the computer work this previous year.