A Day of Math Pd

I really thought today was going to be great!  I had put together a presentation and activities for the k-5 math teachers in the building on problem solving.  It was bad.   Lots of silence, very little participation,and energy.  What went wrong?   I swear the problem we all worked was excellent, the resources we used to find good problems were great, and the reflection we all did on what makes a good problem was relevant and worthwhile.  I do not know.

   

This is not the first time I have done in-service for other math teachers and came out wondering what just happened.   I think part of it is my expectations.  Just because I think I have put together a brilliant PD, does not mean others will think it is.....especially if it not for math teachers.   I have been surprised in the past. It is important for me to look through the eyes of an elementary teacher, where Math is important, but does not take up the day.  So i thought I had that covered today.  I thought wrong.

Ugh.  I feel like  I just taught a poor lesson, but I am not sure why it was bad?  At least when I am teaching I know what I could have done to improve the lesson.   Teaching adults is not as easy as teaching children.  I know children.

1st POST: Why am I here? The Proof

So I have been wanting to start a blog.  Here it is.   The past few years I have been going to blogs to reflect and get ideas from other math teachers.  I want to record some of those travels.... a blog is like a photo album of teaching.  A record.  Maybe someone will come here and learn something or get inspired.

I teach at The Hasten Hebrew Academy of Indianapolis.   This is a small private jewish day school on the north side of Indy.  I am the head of the middle school and teach mathematics to children in grades 4-8.  My classes include 6th grade math, Pre-Algebra, Algebra, and Geometry.

Blogs are full of ideas for new activities and good problems to solve.  This past month I have been introducing proofs to my Geometry class.  The book seemed too prescribed and dull.  There is almost nothing in the book to help students understand what a proof is.....and very little variety beyond two column geometric proofs.  I was able to gather some good thoughts on how to present my students some great ideas about proofs.  John Benson, a former colleague I used to teach with in Evanston, had some great ideas on his blog, Angles of Reflection.  This blog has the best general math teaching advice.

As I hunted around and found great ideas for helping students see the power of proof.  Students really enjoyed these WORDs activities.  They saw how a set of rules could be made for us to follow.  Deductive reasoning became a fun game, a logic puzzle.

We then looked at proofs that we could not solve.  When I heard my students explain what they needed to do in order to solve I felt like progress had been made.   Then we looked at proofs that were deceiving, ones they lead you down the wrong road.  Here are some examples.

I will have to wait and see if this helps create a foundation in "proof in geometry" as we will me doing proofs all year long