May 2014 Update
In this issue:
- Fall VCTM Conference Date Set
- Common Core Statistics Course Offering
- Failing Schools, Again? Really?
- 2048 Update
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Mark Your Calendar- the VCTM Fall Conference Date is set; The Vermont Council of Teachers of Mathematics (VCTM) invites you to our Annual Conference, “Teaching Mathematics Today” to be held on Friday, October 17 at St. Michael’s College in Colchester.
Join us for a day of conversation, presentations, idea sharing, and resource gathering. Network with mathematics educators from across the state and learn about what’s working well in other teachers’ classrooms. If you have ideas to share related to the topics of teaching and assessing the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics; SBAC; Project-based instruction; and Heterogeneous grouping K-12, please keep an eye out for our forthcoming call for presentation proposals. Registration will open in late summer. We hope to see you in October!
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Common Core Stats Course Offering
Common Core Statistics for Secondary Education Teachers (61074 EDCI 200 Z1); Meeting Dates & Times: June 23-27 (8 AM - 4 PM)
The latest research on purposes for including probability and statistics in a mathematics curriculum will be reviewed and discussed. Methods for employing best practices with respect to teaching probability and statistics will be presented throughout this course. Participants will explore problems that require them to formulate questions, gather, display, summarize, examine and interpret data. We will model data and use probability models and random processes to discover patterns and deviations from patterns.
Participants will investigate how students’ learning of statistics and probability is different than mathematics. Teachers in this course will be given various instructional resources, including lesson plans and activities, technology resources, web applets, data sets and appropriate investigative assignments. At the conclusion of the course, teachers will be familiar with the Common Core probability and statistics standards for high school students and develop an appropriate investigation with a scoring guideline to use for assessment.
UVM Summer University registration can be found using this link. Or contact Stacey Anthony from Essex HS (santhony@ccsuvt.org) if you would like any additional information.
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The sky is allegedly falling. Again. *Sigh* Newsflash: Recent NAEP data reveals that schools are not improving in math. Again. Really? Are teachers really failing? Or are students failing? Is everyone failing, or is this a measure that is not in sync with the changes that we have and are making in today's schools?
What's your opinion about what needs to be measured? Creativity? Problem solving? Basic skills? Our ability to solve pure math problems against the rest of the world? What is it that will really show the public that we are doing our jobs well? [And, if we are really failing, then why are most of the new cutting edge computer companies here in the US?]
We'd love for you to comment on this!!
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2048 Update: In the last month, 2048 went completely viral and it became cool to tell someone that you reached the 4096 or 8192 level. Believe it or not, I have a student who reached the 2^17 level- scoring an incredible 2.85 million points!! Personally, I'm a bit more pedestrian at about 59,000 points- how about you?
In case you are wondering, 2048 is a free app that is way too addictive, but lots of fun.
