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Showing posts from September, 2013

Global Read Aloud 2013

So why did I decide to make my class participate in the Global Read Aloud Project, 2013?  I know it requires effort to set up blogs, edmodo and twitter accounts. It takes patience to locate schools and establish and maintain connections. It also takes a sizable proportion of students' classroom time, learning how to tweet and blog and introduce themselves. Essential agreements for blogging and making comments also need to be addressed.   So why go through all this trouble  specially when it takes up a huge chunk of our time? Julie Lindsay and Vicky Davies, authors of  Flattening classrooms, Engaging Minds, state that   "Visionary educators realize global collaboration is not an extra but a pedagogy ."  It is our job as educators to provide engaging, real-life, authentic situations for our students. The fact that this experience extends beyond  geographical borders and ventures across seas, makes it so much more appealing.  How can you have a world class educatio

Mathematically Inclined

"In the case of mathematics, there is a persistent attempt to erase the subjective and affective in favour of: mathematics that is as dry as dust, as exciting as a telephone book, as remote as the laws of infangthief of 15th century Scotland.."                                                                                                           David and Hersh Ask yourself this question: How mathematically curious are my students? Always Often Sometimes Never In a traditional classroom set up, the answer will almost unequivocally be "Never".  Baring those students who are naturally inclined to learn maths intuitively and where the system fails to bog them down :) In a maths inquiry classroom, students are : Being curious Making conjectures Not worrying about uncertainty/mistakes Using intuition, and Asking "Why?!" Curiosity . What kind of questions can we ask students in order to dispel the fear of maths and invoke pa