MidSchoolMath National Conference 2015

By shifting our focus on teaching students what to learn, we need to look deeper into how they learn. Technology such as computers, phones, and video games are everywhere! Students love to draw, doodle, and sketch on their notes, assignments, and even on tests. Mathematics and art have an amazing connection and teaching mathematics with art can be an excellent teaching strategy. Why not implement these resources into the curriculum and allow time and space for them to interact with technology and express themselves using individual art pieces in our mathematics classrooms?

Educators need to explore questions related to how tests, feedback and problem solving help our students learn. I have found that connecting mathematical concepts with technology and individual art pieces to be an extremely successful teaching method! The discovery of this strategy has helped me diversify instruction, give frequent and immediate feedback, administer frequent low-stakes testing, provide ultra-rich, complex narrative tasks with grapple time, incorporate distributed practice, and focus on far fewer concepts. This teaching style addresses diverse learning styles, allows the artistically gifted students to shine, provides opportunity for students to move about the classroom, permits students to express their individuality, encourages creativity by engaging the right side of the brain, and accepts peer collaboration and teamwork leading to more meaningful conversations and interactions.

This session will demonstrate how to incorporate technology and student generated art work to display individual understanding of mathematical concepts/problems and their connections to real-word applications. I am currently using Ko’s Journey as the nucleus to drive instruction; while playing Ko’s Journey, students grapple with solutions and create strategies for solving problems, engage in meaningful discussions with their peers, relate each lesson to real world applications, and create individual pieces of art to display what they learned based on a teacher generated rubric.

Note: This session will also be offered on Friday Morning at 11:15 am
BYOD: Please bring a laptop, if you have access to one, with you to this session.