Yesterday, I spent the day in St. Louis with four other colleagues at a Greg Tang math workshop from Creative Mathematics. If you haven't heard of Greg Tang, maybe you have heard of Kim Sutton? Anyways, it was an AWESOME conference. I was a little reluctant, because it's Math and Math is a struggle for myself and many of my kids. I'm just not good at it! He gave us some great resources to use and good insight. At this conference, we had several "light bulb" moments. Things we've known for years and have been teaching for awhile finally "made sense". I know how to do all the Math, but now I know that why question!
The take home point of his entire workshop was that mental math needs to be the goal in mind and that mastery of the strategies is highly important. One thing that we learned that I think needs to be passed to every single educator is this:
When kids are learning multiplication, for example 2 x 3, we teach them to skip count 2, 4, 6, and your answer is 6! However, when kids get to higher level grades, it is not realistic to skip count when you have a number like 2 x 45, so we need to teach them strategies that they will work every time for math instruction.
I got to thinking, wow this is so true! I still have kids who will try to skip count to 85 or even 100 and they are in 5th grade. That is just not going to work out. So, we have to teach strategies that will follow them as they progress in Math.
Another take home point that Mr. Tang spoke about was that we need to start with concrete Math (i.e. manipulatives) and move towards abstract thinking. I definitely agree with this. As an adult, I sometimes still use my fingers (I can't believe I just admitted that) but admit it, some of you do too! The goal is for kids to be able to visualize it in their heads and not have to use concrete methods. I cannot say how important that is.
Also, our kids need to be able to apply what they know to real life and explain it. I have no idea why the quadrilateral formal works, but my teachers told me it did, I memorized the song, and I am proficient at solving it. Heres the key, I DON'T KNOW WHY I AM DOING THAT so I'm not really learning.
I just loved Greg Tang. His humor and tricks really kept us motivated and paying attention. I wish I could teach you every little trick he taught us! Here is the most important thing that Greg Tang taught us:
If we want students to use mental Math, then as teachers, we must get better at mental math. We ALL write every problem out and that doesn't help our kids move towards mental math. Sure, you start with writing it out and gradually take away elements as you work on solving them in your head. As teachers, we cannot be "scared" of Math because it hurts our students. Math is SOO important. Get better at it! That's my goal!
Confession, when I first learned I was teaching 5th grade, I cried. Want to know why? It wasn't tears of joy! I didn't know how to teach 5th grade Math. It wasn't Science, Reading or Writing that scared me, it was the Math. I hadn't added fractions in ages. I hadn't done long division in a long time. I needed a calculator! My goal is to get better at Math and Science because those two subjects are challenging for me and I want my students to feel comfortable with Math.
If you ever have a chance to attend a Greg Tang workshop, I highly recommend it. Prepare to be mind-blown and prepare to perform A LOT of mental Math!
Check out his website on my resources.
Have a great snow day!
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