Teaching Literacy in The Math Classroom

  Today I went to a workshop on increasing literacy in the math classroom.  There was one activity in the whole time that made an impression on me.  My school is slowly moving towards using google in a variety of ways.  The first step was simply moving our mail to gmail but we haven't done much more........Yet!

The coolest thing was the use of google docs as a live written discussion board.  I enjoyed watching people type answers to a question on the page at the same time.  So I looked at 10 ways to use literacy to help foster a deeper understanding of math.

1. Have students present problems on the board showing how they did a problem.  They explain how they solved the problem, their thought process, etc.

2. Have students write down how they solved a problem.

3.  Have students choose one problem they missed and explain what the mistake was.

4.  Have students make quizzes for each other.

5. Have students write down how they would explain a concept to a friend.

6.  Have students tell each other how they solved a problem.

7. Use exit slips to gauge understanding.

8. Require students to take notes

9. Let students help each other solve problems

10. Moderate an online discussion.

Many of these activities can easily be done either with pen and paper or digitally.  There are also LMS that would allow you to hold the discussions.

Increasing reading and writing using the iPad.

Wednesday is the day I work with my students on learning to solve word problems.  Since so many are classified as ELL, I make them write down the answers to the following questions:
1. What do I know?
2. What do I need to find?
3.  What things do I need to consider such as special formulas, the operation, additional information to keep in mind or other things.
4. The work.

I need to start using something like Showbie so they can annotate, underline, etc any information in the word problem before writing the information on their worksheet.  I think taking the time to underline, identify and comment on things before writing the information down will help increase their English, cut down on guessing and get them to slow down and really check out the information. I am hopeful this skill will transfer to the mandated testing.

"When will I ever use this in real life?

This common questions is asked by students who need a reason to study mathematics.  I can point to a chart on the wall, answer it with examples but they still just shake their heads and tell me they are never going to need it.  I stumbled across a lovely website called Appreciate Math which gives some nice real life examples.  There are not too many examples but it looks like the site author recently started.  The entry on Math in Nature has a short 2:44 video I can show my students to give them a chance to see mathematics in real life.  I may even take the entries and have my students read and summarize the material as a way of helping answer that question and to get them to practice their reading and writing skills.
Most of my students see reading and writing as something that only happens in English or Social Studies.  As a school we are trying to increase test scores by increasing reading and writing across the core subjects. 
Enjoy.

Including literacy

I have been working on figuring out how to include more literacy activities in my Mathematics classrooms and integrate the iPad at the same time.  I found some graphic organizers that can be used such as an anticipation set of comments/questions, a summery writing chart, a semantic map, possible sentences and a reading log.  I know I can scan these and use them via an app like subtext but I am wondering if I want to have students do all of these graphic organizers on the iPad.  The pros include the students sending finished work directly to me via e-mail, the typing is more legible than their handwriting, they do not loose the paper and they do not need to have a writing implement.  In addition, it uses less paper at the copy machines.  The con's is that they have to type the answer rather than write, the iPad can sometimes be more awkward to use than a paper and pencil.
This is something I have to work out and make a decision on.  I suspect I will end up splitting the times I use the iPad and have them write things out.