I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the MACUL conference this year in Grand Rapids Michigan. We arrived Friday morning and I was able to attended three sessions. I had chosen three sessions to attend before I arrived and I was excited to get started. When we arrived I was shocked at how many people were there and how large the venue was. I started looking for my first session about 20 minuets before it was supposed to begin and I did not arrive to the location (after getting lost a few times) until 5 minuets after it began! By the time I arrived at the project based learning presentation it was full, so I wondered into a different session on organizing my gmail accounts. Even though this session was not directly about teaching I found it very helpful and when I find some time organizing my e-mail will be first on my list!! In this session the presenter explained how to use labels, filters, and stars to organize your e-mail. If you would like more information here is the link to what he presented at MACUL 2014 click here or leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer your questions.
The next session I attended was on flipping your math classroom. I was excited to attend my first math oriented session. To make sure that we did not miss this one we rushed over right after our first session finished, it was a good thing that we did because that session filled up quickly as well. While this session did not introduce many new aspects of flipping your classroom they did offer some good resources for flipping your classroom and a lot of good websites for finding videos about math (I am currently not with my notes that I took on that day but I will post some of those resources when I get home). Another idea that this session introduced me to that I was excited about was that you could flip one day or one unit you do not have to go all out flipping right away. I am not sure why this thought had never come to me before but it made flipping seem much more manageable and something that you could try and if it does not work well for that unit then not have to commit to it for the entire year. In looking back this session was probably the most helpful in thinking about teaching math.
The next session I went to was the one that I was most excited to go to, it was about differentiation in a math classroom. The presenters' classroom was very different than the classroom that I am working in and so the information presented was not as useful as I had hoped. The presenter had students at different grade levels and at different places in the curriculum in the classroom and her presentation was about how she helps all of these students learn what they need for where they are. I appreciate the work she is doing but what I am struggling with differentiation is how to best help all of my students in my classroom reach the same goals. When all of the students in the classroom have different goals I believe this is a different type of differentiation.
Overall I enjoyed my experience at MACUL! I was surprised by the size and how many educators were there!! I learned some valuable information but I think next time I would like to do some better research on the presenters to find the one that will best match my current teaching situation.
I think you make a great point when discussing that you don't have to flip all the way. We (or I, at least) have a tendency to think of all-or-nothing when it comes to flipping. One of the biggest hesitations I've had mentally addressing the issue has been creating a predictable, reliably system from nothing. All of the pre-planning seems far too intense to actually get past the inertia. It's a refreshing perspective to think on partial flipping, even of individual lessons.
ReplyDeleteDifferentiation remains one of the thorns in my side. I'd be interested in hearing a bit more about your presenter for the math class. What were the differences between their classroom and your own? You bring up a good point about different goals. Is it ethical to have different goals/expectations from different students? Is differentiation creating a different grading parameter for different students? If so, what happened to high expectations?
Glad you enjoyed MACUL! Good luck with all of the remaining excitement of the semester. I look forward to seeing how you proceed with possible flips and differentiations in your class.
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteThe flipping concept is an interesting one. The big question is, how do we get kids to do their homework? If we can answer that one, then I'm not sure it matters the medium they use to do so. I'm curious to know how much kids do their homework in your placement, and/or what makes them do it or not do it. It seems to be an epidemic!