Youcubed

I stopped through Youcubed this morning and discovered they have added to the website.  Thanks to Josh Fisher for linking to a video from there that made me check the site out again.  The video is a great one talking about brain research and learning math.  The video explains that being born to do math is not true but you can learn to do it by practicing.  Its one I want to show my students.

There is a whole section on Brain Science which has topic that are so relevant to us as teachers.  One topic is aligning assessment to brain science while another looks at the idea of how "giftedness" can hurt students or the one on speed and time pressure block working memory.  

That last one is kind of cool because it appears that at least one third of the students experience this during timed tests.  I love the comment about those who use strategy to solve problems solve problems at the same rate as those who memorize but have a better rate of transference.  I work with my students on strategies rather than always memorizing things.  I also try to come up with physical sayings to help them remember things.  They laugh when I do it but about half of them actually move their hands along with me to learn it.

When I give the motions to them, it sparks their memory and they know what to do.  The site even has some recommendations for math apps to use in the classroom and an idea and tasks section with information on making group work equal, assessment and grading, etc.  This gives me some great reading material.  I am wondering if I should break tests up and give one part each day so they have time to work and if they finish the section early, they can work on work they owe me?   

Thanks Josh for sparking my curiosity to recheck the website.  I forget that websites grow, evolve and change much as our learning does.