Burnaby Math

Are you interested in a spring book club? We have two different books on offer.  On April 26 and May 31, we will examine Making Number Talks Matter by Cathy Humpreys and Ruth Parker.  This book helps us explore how to lead our classes in the Number Talks routine, and how to deepen mathematical understanding.  The book is aimed at Grade 4-10 teachers.  Our first session will be introduced to the topic, receive books and we will read a chapter, and in the second session will have us review our reading and share ways to use it in our classes.  I’m also interested in working with classroom teachers to implement number talks, so I will follow up with you on a 1:1 basis with support.  Read more about the book here.

Our second book club is on Tracy Johnstone Zager’s Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You’d Had: Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms. This book club will meet on May 7 and May 28.  Zager will be attending next October’s BCAMT PSA conference in Whistler, so there will be lots of opportunity for follow up.  Read more about this book here.

Sign up on our staff development calendar.  If you need more info about the book clubs or just want to chat, contact me at Donna.Morgan@burnabyschools.ca

3 Weeks Until Video Contest Ends

Entries into our 3-Act Math Video Contest are due on April 30.  Find details here:

Math Contest 2018.docx

Guest Post by: Keir Calvert, Royal Oak Alternate Program

I was a terrible math student.   In fact, halfway through Math 12, I dropped out.  It is the greatest irony that I am now the math teacher with the Royal Oak Alternate Program.  Similar to my own high school experience, the majority of the students at Royal Oak struggle with learning the concepts in the curriculum.  As a result of their perceived failures, students frequently use the word “hate” to describe their attitudes about the subject as a whole.  In recognizing this pattern with incoming students, my search began for an engaging and accessible way to teach Math 11 A&W.   

Sitting at my desk one day, my eyes glanced around the classroom.  Settling over a lone chessboard collecting dust on a bookshelf, I recalled my fondness of playing the game as a teenager and thought, “there must be some way to squeeze math out of this.”  Eventually, realizing that the board was similar to graphing paper opened up new possibilities as I considered ways to use chess to teach a graphical representations unit.  The students were inquisitive and engaged, and once they had learned the game I began to see other uses of chess to teach scale representations, Pythagorean Theorem, trigonometry, surface area and volume, and slope & rate of change.  Chess is now used to teach approximately 60% of the course at Royal Oak.  Most students that enter the program have little to no knowledge of chess.  Teaching them the game first and the mathematical applications secondly allows for play and ‘gaming’ to be at the forefront of their learning pathway.  Chess has become a favorable pastime, and the students will frequently ask to play in their downtime.  They ask to do math instead of avoid it. There are benefits beyond math proficiency that come with the game. Chess exercises their patience, concentration, strategy building, and ability to look at a situation from multiple perspectives. Students are engaged in positive social interactions where interpersonal skills and critical thinking is necessary. Chess has not only transformed my teaching practices and the attitude about learning math in the class, it acts as a way to connect through gaming.