Bob Zenhausern's Comments

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At 3:35am on October 23, 2009, Greg Limperis said…
How did the interview go? Sorry I could not make it. I had a class at that time.

Greg
At 7:06pm on August 11, 2009, Richard Opie said…
Dear Bob

I am only a classroom teacher in the backblocks of Australia. I might be out of my class but your project might be heading where I want to go. I am worried by a group of boys (mainly) who are 'failing' mainstream school and leave with minimal literacy etc. I am interested in trying to reach these kids in other ways. I have used blogs and web pages and podcasts to teach a seriously ill student for a semester, successfully. So, I dabble.
At 4:26pm on April 2, 2009, Roland O'Daniel said…
I didn't realize you had two comments. I actually responded to the second comment first, sorry.

Yes I notice learning styles. It's one reason I like the metacognitive focus. It allows students to analyze their thinking to find efficiencies and faults. It's our job as teachers to present them with multiple perspectives and to provide them opportunities. For instance with the problem below, I would ask students to solve it from multiple perspectives; table of values, algebraically, graphically, and even a group to explain what the solutions represents in terms of some application or to make connections between the input and output somehow. It's interesting, I just used this approach with teachers in a workshop, and I got a lot of pushback from high school algebra teachers because they couldn't explain the solution in words. It just reinforced to me that they weren't trained using multiple perspectives and they don't value them with their students. In my opinion, they don't get it (but that's just my opinion).
I would be glad to share my idea with you. It's not fleshed out yet, but I need to spend some time working on it.
At 4:02pm on April 2, 2009, Roland O'Daniel said…
I'll give you a question first, if I ask you to solve the equation 3x + 5 = -4 using a table of values.


I would then ask that you think about the decisions you made to come to the solution. The process you used, and the decisions you made are what I am interested in helping you organize, develop and expand upon. It's that thinking that students use when solving complex problems (or not so complex problems) that I believe we need to focus on more as teachers of mathematics. I think (and research backs me up on this) that most teachers focus on the simple skills of solving linear equations algebraically rather than allow students to sort throught those rough processes and learn to become more efficient at making critical decisions.

Let me explain by accessing the problem I asked you to solve earlier. Could you look at the problem and rethink your approach so that you could solve it more efficiently next time? or What answer could there be on the output side that would make this method very difficult? Why would it be more difficult?

If you can sort those kinds of questions out after solving the problem then you are more likely to be able to use those processes in a flexible manner in future problem solving endeavors (at least that's the theory I'm using as a basis for my project). So my goal would be to use an on-going conversation with the teacher and other classmates to explore problem solving approaches, to learn to capture them, think about them, make them more efficient/effective.

What do you think?
At 6:22pm on March 26, 2009, Tammy Moore said…
Great! I am glad to see you visit our site. I manually confirmed your account, so give it another try. :0)
At 6:47am on March 22, 2009, Roland O'Daniel said…
Thanks for the reply. I share your thinking about estimation as important as computation, and I think lots of research backs you. I spend a lot of time trying to help teachers understand the balance that needs to occur in a classroom so that students aren't just compliant, but engaged, observing, and learning. They have a tough job, but it's worth the battle.

I looked at your organization's site yesterday. I must say I didn't look that closely, but I'm impressed with the effort (one reason why I made the connection). Like my mother too young to retire but ready for a change in perspective? When she retired she worked for ten years running a small non-profit office. She was the business manager, but had more experience and knowledge than anyone else in the organization. She liked not having the title, so she could make it happen and not have to worry about all the details. (Not saying you are like that, but that's her story)

I'm finishing my coursework this spring and sitting for comps in the fall. I work too much during the summer to attempt to study for August comps. I'm working on my framework for my dissertation. I'm battling one of two approaches to explore problem solving in algebra. It's a pertinent area for immediate impact on a growing field in math ed. I'm exploring providing students a specific model to explore- specifically the Singapore bar model, and use explicit strategy instruction to see how well they are able to incorporate. I'll send you a brief description if you are bored and need some bedtime reading. The other topic is of more interest to me, but has some other issues; using metacognitive reflection and threaded discussions to identify processes and concepts that students are using in problem solving situations in algebra. Connected to the first but separate.

Anyway, thanks for the reply and I look forward to connecting again. Have a good Sunday. I'm going for a ride! It's sunny and not cold in Kentucky today.
At 5:45pm on March 21, 2009, Thomas T. Panto said…
We used the rulers to draw the shape of roads going into the distance, and houses and roofs, and to scale the size of trees as they went into the distance on the road. Even drawing faces was easier were rulers framing and lining up the features.
At 2:39pm on March 21, 2009, Thomas T. Panto said…
... no structured class... just kids playing.. learning from reality.
At 2:38pm on March 21, 2009, Thomas T. Panto said…
I was 5 at the time. We just made squares, triangle, trapezoids and hexagons until algebra made sense.
I remember having a paperboard under the rulers with 1 inch pattern helped our thinking.
We were Hungarian, so it could have been Metric.. but no matter, the concept stuck.
Learned to count volumes and relationships.
At 11:02am on March 21, 2009, Patt Haring said…
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you,

then they fight you, then you win."

- Mahatma Gandhi
At 9:34pm on March 20, 2009, Thomas T. Panto said…
Hi,
I bought a box of 12 inch rulers...
Now I'm ready in case I'm asked to teach a 5 year old basic geometry. :)

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