Province Wide Pro D Day

On Friday, I will be attending the BCAMT Conference virtually!

Added Friday, October 20, 2023

I attended all the sessions at the conference online; the first session by Sean Chorney, "Going to Math Class vs. Belonging to Math Class: Elevating Classroom Communities" by Timothy Spray, "Quizzes Where Wrong Answers Don't Count Against You" by Patrick Nelson, "Culturally Responsive Teachingthrough a Thinking Classroom Approach" by Aleda Klassen and the AGM. 

The first session focused on allowing students to be active participants in communities. He highlights that students need to be wanting to be a part of math class. I really enjoyed this presentation because he offered practical tips to implement on the first day of class. He provided a website (flippity.net) and emphasized that randomizing seating arrangements is beneficial and will help students work with their classmates.  Even though some students may be not comfortable in the beginning, they need to practice working through the awkwardness of all relationships even for their future. He created an environment where all students knew each other names and took risks when learning. He also emphasized the benefits of using whiteboards and allowing students to work in pairs. I enjoyed this seminar the most because there were many practical tips that I would utilize in my own classroom. 

The second session was about assessing content and how he uses quizzes for standards-based assessment. He showed us an example of how he marks quizzes. Instead of using the proficiency scale, he either marks the question right or wrong. He also requires the students to do the quiz twice for two demonstrations. His grade book is categorized into skills that he is looking for and puts a checkmark if the student acquired the skill and leaves it blank if the student did not. I liked this method because it focuses on students' curricular competencies rather than driving them to chase for grades. I would definitely try to create a classroom environment where assessment is authentic, but I think I do like the proficiency scale better because it has clear and detailed expectations and skills that are required for the students to accomplish.

The last session was focused on the thinking classrooms framework. She emphasizes that thinking classrooms allow students to be more independent. They can develop agency and independence through language and conversation. Hence, we need to implement group work so that students can connect to their classmates. She offers practical strategies such as VRG (visibly random groups). I need to make sure that I switch groups for every task and explicitly teach and give feedback on collaboration so that there is an increase in knowledge mobility and a decrease in reliance on the teacher. I also learned that we need to be culturally responsive and this can be done through instructional conversation. I would love to know more about the thinking classroom as I want to foster an environment that includes critical thinking, collaborative learning, and reflection.