In this professional development we learned how to infuse writing in our math courses. One way that I have done over the past years is by having a journal which students have to write what they learned that day. I believe education is the process of guiding students, and giving them tools with which to explore and discover not only what the answer is, but why by writing in an essay form. In my classes this year, students discuss their discoveries in small groups and present them in writing assignments, explanatory papers and proofs done in and out of class, as well as projects and presentations. We need to balance our time so that students can extend the areas of mathematics in which they do well and also continue their work on becoming proficient in areas where they have needs.
This professional development session was centered around writing in the content area of mathematics. For this content, it is easy to include reading because of word problems, especially in Algebra and Geometry. But the writing is a little more difficult. One way to "sneak" the writing into the material is to set students into groups and "work backwards". I ask each group to come up with a word problem related to the specific topic being learned in class. Once the groups write their word problems, they also write a "key" on a separate sheet. The groups then exchange papers and each group must solve another group's problem and explain in writing the steps used to solve the problem. That way, each group writes a problem and a solution and the class ends up with at least 6 new, creative problems they cannot find in a book. It is extremely important for us as teachers to make sure the students are not only learning about our specific content, but that they are also reading and writing in our class on a regular basis. This will definitely improve their skills even beyond their school years.
As a language Arts teacher, I felt that this workshop was very relevant. I often have to come up with "out of the box" writing assignments to keep my students actively writing and interested in writing. My students and I were working on pastoral poetry and it was perfect timing for a writing assignment. They had to write a reply to one of the poems in the form of a letter and they evaluated each others letters. I think writing accross the curriculum is a giant step towards improvement in literacy.
This Professional Development taught us how writing across the curriculum is a collaborative effort among all teachers in all content areas to increase student writing performance. It focused on writing in the content area of mathematics. We learned about expository and persuasive essays. A writing activity I have incorporated in my math lessons are writing journals. The students had a separate section in their math notebook for writing. Every day they would write an expository paragraph explaining what they had learned that day in math class. Sometimes I would give them a question as a prompt. This workshop was excellent and gave us many other ideas on how to incorporate writing into our subject area, as well as many strategies we can use when having our students write. We ended with this final thought, “The success of our students will be determined by our ability to incorporate effective writing strategies”. It is very important for our students to be able to write and communicate their thoughts effectively. By having our students write across the curriculum, in all content areas, it will definitely improve our students’ writing skills.
The Professional Development for Writing Across the Content Areas provided an opportunity to see the different ways that writing could be incorporated into a core subject such as mathematics. Though it may not appear that writing could be used in math, there are many times in which can be utilized. I currently have used "exit slips" as a tool to measure what my students have been able to take from a lesson. This has been very useful in planning my teaching and improving what the students learn. It is important that our students understand that writing is a vital part of their growth into adulthood.I believe that it would be beneficial to the students to have more professional development in assisting our them to become better writers. All content areas would see an improvement in student perforamnce if this could be achieved.
I feel like this workshop was relevant to my subject area. It cleared up any misconceptions about what writing in our content area should be. This is definately something that I would like to have modeled in my classroom. I have been trying to incorporate it more by having students re-write word problems in their own words. I think another workshop on this topic would be very helpful, especially if we could discuss specific assignments with rubrics.
In this professional development we learned how to infuse writing in our math courses. One way that I have done over the past years is by having a journal which students have to write what they learned that day. I believe education is the process of guiding students, and giving them tools with which to explore and discover not only what the answer is, but why by writing in an essay form. In my classes this year, students discuss their discoveries in small groups and present them in writing assignments, explanatory papers and proofs done in and out of class, as well as projects and presentations. We need to balance our time so that students can extend the areas of mathematics in which they do well and also continue their work on becoming proficient in areas where they have needs.
ReplyDeleteThis professional development session was centered around writing in the content area of mathematics. For this content, it is easy to include reading because of word problems, especially in Algebra and Geometry. But the writing is a little more difficult. One way to "sneak" the writing into the material is to set students into groups and "work backwards". I ask each group to come up with a word problem related to the specific topic being learned in class. Once the groups write their word problems, they also write a "key" on a separate sheet. The groups then exchange papers and each group must solve another group's problem and explain in writing the steps used to solve the problem. That way, each group writes a problem and a solution and the class ends up with at least 6 new, creative problems they cannot find in a book. It is extremely important for us as teachers to make sure the students are not only learning about our specific content, but that they are also reading and writing in our class on a regular basis. This will definitely improve their skills even beyond their school years.
ReplyDeleteAs a language Arts teacher, I felt that this workshop was very relevant. I often have to come up with "out of the box" writing assignments to keep my students actively writing and interested in writing. My students and I were working on pastoral poetry and it was perfect timing for a writing assignment. They had to write a reply to one of the poems in the form of a letter and they evaluated each others letters. I think writing accross the curriculum is a giant step towards improvement in literacy.
ReplyDeleteThis Professional Development taught us how writing across the curriculum is a collaborative effort among all teachers in all content areas to increase student writing performance. It focused on writing in the content area of mathematics. We learned about expository and persuasive essays. A writing activity I have incorporated in my math lessons are writing journals. The students had a separate section in their math notebook for writing. Every day they would write an expository paragraph explaining what they had learned that day in math class. Sometimes I would give them a question as a prompt. This workshop was excellent and gave us many other ideas on how to incorporate writing into our subject area, as well as many strategies we can use when having our students write. We ended with this final thought, “The success of our students will be determined by our ability to incorporate effective writing strategies”. It is very important for our students to be able to write and communicate their thoughts effectively. By having our students write across the curriculum, in all content areas, it will definitely improve our students’ writing skills.
ReplyDeleteThe Professional Development for Writing Across the Content Areas provided an opportunity to see the different ways that writing could be incorporated into a core subject such as mathematics. Though it may not appear that writing could be used in math, there are many times in which can be utilized. I currently have used "exit slips" as a tool to measure what my students have been able to take from a lesson. This has been very useful in planning my teaching and improving what the students learn. It is important that our students understand that writing is a vital part of their growth into adulthood.I believe that it would be beneficial to the students to have more professional development in assisting our them to become better writers. All content areas would see an improvement in student perforamnce if this could be achieved.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this workshop was relevant to my subject area. It cleared up any misconceptions about what writing in our content area should be. This is definately something that I would like to have modeled in my classroom. I have been trying to incorporate it more by having students re-write word problems in their own words. I think another workshop on this topic would be very helpful, especially if we could discuss specific assignments with rubrics.
ReplyDelete