I am attending my first ever Ontario Association of Math Educators conference. Yesterday was the first day. I told my children I was going to school to be a student and learn more about teaching math, and that is exactly what happened. I signed up for a variety of workshops, and have not been disappointed in any.
The very first session I attended was called “Where Fractions, Area and Volume Come to Play” and was presented by Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB teachers Brandi Hollinger and Laurie Moher. It was great! They shared an action research project teachers in their board had been involved with. They studied and learned how to support students with learning difficulties in the math classroom. They shared a really great document, available on Edugains called “Supporting Students with Learning Disabilities in Math“. I already spent some time with this document last night, but will need to really digest it when I don’t have a brain that already feels stuffed (with more to come today!) I was so excited about it I put it out on Twitter, and someone else recommended that I take a look at “The Waterfall” document produced by York. HOLY COW! It’s a document full of information that is specific to math and learning disabilities and I feel like I am going to use to be a GENIUS IEP writer/implementor.
I also attended a workshop put on by the amazing Aviva Dunsiger. She teaches math all day long in her Early Learning Kindergarten classroom. ALL. DAY. And it’s integrated into the children’s play. So what does this have to do with me, a not-kindergarten teacher? I’m thinking a lot about how I could be doing little bits of math throughout the day. My friend, also at OAME with me, did a class with ideas for math DPA. So I’m thinking a lot about that, and how I could be doing math in little tiny snippets all day.
Day 2:
I am now in my 3rd workshop of the day and haven’t had time to even finish the first post. This conference has cost me some money (though my board is supporting me with PD funds for most of it) and has cost me some time. But it is seriously so worth it. I’m thinking about what I might teach next year. I’m thinking about what I am going to teach in June this year. I’m thinking about improving assessment and note keeping (Oh the note keeping!!)
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Sounds amazing Lisa. I hope that you will be ready and willing share some of your discoveries with you colleagues! Am I smelling another book club this summer?
I was thinking about giving up on the book club, but now I have 3 book ideas. 🙂 LOL And you know I will share until people are sick of me sharing.
Thanks for going – I’ve already been looking at the Edugains document & can’t wait to check out the other. Keep posting!
Teachers are so amazing. I walk out of every session thinking about that. The things people have come up with are incredible.
Lisa, I’m not sure how I missed these blog posts of yours. Thanks for coming to my workshop, and thanks for sharing your thinking about what this approach to math could look like for you. I’d love to hear more about the Math DPA, and what you try. Monica Moran (also on Twitter) is our Phys-Ed Consultant for the Board, and she also experiments with math connections to DPA. I think this has a lot of potential.
Aviva