C4T #3

My third  C4T is  Diane Dahl. She is an elementary teacher who lives in Texas. She likes to incorporate technology and using brain-based teaching strategies.

#1: Using Data to Drive Meaningful, Targeted, Brain-Based Math Instruction

Her first post was about using the multifaceted approach. This approach makes teachers get to know the students better, reflect on previous content, teaching new content, student performance, and students know the right language. Diane says students need to know the language of math. Since she is teaching second grade her students need to know what certain words mean such as value, portion, and fractional model. Students have a daily math problem in the morning. These problems  come from data used in homework and from quizzes. Diane also likes to use student names, other teacher names, and school staff in problems to help the students become more engaged.  

Comment:
     I really enjoyed your ideas on the multifaceted approach. I like that you include students names, their friends names, and staff names in problems. I think students would become more engaged that way. I also like how you define language to the students. It's very important for them to know what the words mean. If they don't they wont understand the question. Last, keeping a list on the questions that the students missed the most is a great idea. That means they don't quite understand the material and review is necessary. Great post!


#2 :Tips for Productive Math Groups

 Diane's second post was the effective way to get students to work in groups. She talks about students working together in groups with different personalities such as those kids who may not want to work with other kids or kids that are criers. Diane also talks about how to determine accountability. She asked her students to write their own responses in their journal so she would knew if they all participated in the activity. Also, she makes her own QR codes ( the bar code found on many  things that you can scan from your phone to get more information about). With the QR codes she has a problem with the QR code on the paper and students can scan the code to get the correct answer to the problem.

Comment:
  I really enjoyed this post. Even though I am not studying elementary education I really found this post to helpful for my subject (Social Studies). I plan to have my students working in groups often and I always wondered how I can make sure all of the students are actually participating. I think your ideas on participation and accountability is great.  I also, like your idea on using QR codes. I did not know it was possible to use those. Very interesting!