Fall 2013 SMUMN Conference

After our Fall 2013 Conference wrapped up and I was on my way home, I was thinking back to the BIG ideas I was able to obtain while there. I was in a Math K-6 session, with a group of teachers who had some pretty inspiring stories and ideas to use in the classroom. One of the main concepts we discussed was the idea of flipped classrooms. Christine, a teacher from Duluth, has implemented a flipped classroom model during math in her first grade classroom. I was inspired to see her hard work and effort to get this concept rolling in the primary grades. I hope to do more research on this topic and possibly implement it during the 2014-2015 school year. 

We also discussed guided math. Joy and Becky had wonderful ideas on how to use this teaching style in their classrooms, and their energy was magnetic! I am curious once again to see how this model would look in my classroom. 

Bill, our facilitator was able to discuss some of the things he was doing in his fourth grade classroom pertaining to flexible grouping. He truly made me re-think of the way I was traditionally assessing my students. Typically, I was pre-testing before each unit. He gave me the idea to do a pre-test before each lesson, to see student understanding. I am still brainstorming ways on how this would look and operate in my first grade class, but where there is a will, there's a way. One possibility is to use my math journals at the end of each lesson and have students answer a question, to the best of their ability for the next day's skills. I could then see who understands the concept, and who needs more assistance. 

Overall, the Lasallian principles were very apparent. Bill set up community right away with community building activities. He then gave us time to build a caring environment by laying out a list that looked like this:

Today: Our Norms

1. Speak Your Truth

2. Stay Engaged

3. Experience Discomfort

4. Expect and accept non-closure

We all started from here and made it a beneficial day.