 Hello everyone and welcome to Math Mashup with CISA. This webinar is intended for upper elementary and middle school teachers and students so that we can mash up some math with some good math talk and differentiation and even throw in some positivity and personalized learning as well. I'm excited to have you here with me. My name is Cara Brem. I'm formerly a third, fourth and fifth grade teacher and also a seventh grade math teacher in Cary, North Carolina right outside of our capital city of Raleigh. I'm currently an instructional facilitator but don't let that fool you. I just recently came out of the classroom this past school year so that role is new to me but I do love teaching math and taught fourth grade before I taught seventh grade and certainly dove right in. Feel free to connect with me at Mrs. Brem Tweet's on Twitter or at Mrs. Brem Math on Instagram. You will see that I am a CISA ambassador. I'm also national board certified teacher. I'm certified in literacy. I know go figure right? Math teacher certified in literacy. I'm also a Google certified educator level two. So I'm excited to have you here with me. A couple housekeeping things. Thank you to everyone who is joining me live. We do have a nice group here today so if you are joining me live I appreciate you and you get a nice little free pass. You'll get a certificate for viewing that will be emailed directly to you for watching live so that certificate of completion for this 30-minute webinar will be emailed to all of my live viewers so live viewers no need to listen for a code during this session but if you are watching this during a recording you can get a six digit code that I will give throughout the session so please make sure if you're watching this in a recording only that you are ready to write down a six digit code and fill out a form and grab that code for your time here today. Alright I am excited to have you with me and share a math mashup. One of the things I wanted to just you know start off with is that sometimes the simplest things can certainly you know be so powerful. I like to keep what I do with my students in math and on CESA simple. I like that when I do keep it simple the students tend to be engaged and then everyone's learning right so simple yet effective. Here's my first example for you. One of the things that I enjoyed doing for both my fourth graders and my seventh graders in math was explaining their thinking. So that's allowing students to solve problems and tell about their problems. Whether it's solving more complex multi-step balancing equations for example like you see in this activity or it's very simple you can encourage choice and voice on how students share and you can also encourage students to have some math talk where they're using that vocabulary and working working things out on their own. Let me share with you a student example we have here. Let's go. Today we are doing two times the quantity of x plus two equals 164. First we have to distribute two so we do two times x that equals two x and then we do two times two that equals 164 and that equals 164. Next what we do we have to even it out so we subtract four away from both sets. That would be what's with two x is equal to 160. Next we have to divide it by two. We should divide both sides to get it equal. You can see here and there's an additional minute and 15 seconds you haven't seen yet but he does continue to go through and solve it totally completely correct and check his work with that math talk. He's bringing in some vocabulary talking about balancing those equations and all of that can be so powerful. A second quick example that I do have here for you as well is from a fourth grade classroom. See if we get this started my computer is acting a little slow. There we go. Okay so I'm gonna pause that for a second and I like to share this example because one of the things that I think is important here for teachers is not necessarily you know listening to the students all the time but it's getting a snapshot of their work and being able to check it in your own way at your own time while listening to them you know share things out. This student really isn't sharing how she solved the problems she's certainly sharing all the parts of her robot but the simple part of all of this was that it was with something we did hands-on in my fourth grade classroom as compared to the last example that was done only truly in seesaw where he was you know sharing out his his math with just seesaw so I wanted to show both of those for that reason. It can be as simple as just sharing and talking through something that's already been done in the classroom. Encourage that math talk, let the students choose. It can be so powerful for them to hear themselves. Another example of how I use seesaw and with my students was through real-world relationships. I loved having the students see something that they're learning in math and really be able to find it in the classroom or find it in the school and an example of that would be to do a scavenger hunt. You could take you know almost any topic that you're doing and find it in the school and make it into a scavenger hunt. The example that you see to the right is goes along with the activity that's listed there on the left where students went around the room and they were finding radius diameter circumference circumference and area. They were telling me how would they find that you know with objects in our own classroom and they were using seesaw to label whoops excuse me let me head back here a second. Ah they were using it to label my apologies for that. So they were able to go into seesaw and use the camera, take a photo, draw on top of a photo and be able to to share their learning. There we go that's what I wanted to click. So here's just a click. Very simple but very effective. By watching these I can see if my students understand the parts and the pieces and I'm able to determine that. Now I can fast forward this a little bit. This is just a chair in our classroom. Students use whatever they wanted. They use water bottles. They use markers you know the end of a marker all kinds. So they were able to you know share what they knew and students who didn't share all the parts and pieces I was able to go back and determine well do they not share because they were you know truly unsure of what circumference was or what a diameter was or how to find the area or you know was it for another reason. So this is a very quick and simple example from my fourth grade classroom that you know we were looking at patterns and it was take a picture and share pattern that you find in the classroom again very simple but very effective. If you're watching and a recording of this webinar please write down the first three digits of your six digit code nine eight three. All right so another thing I'd like to do with my math students is always encourage a positive math mindset. Students often start math and jump into math with the oh I'm not good at math. I can't do that before they ever even try and I think you know as long as you keep that positivity flowing all year long they're going to build that math positive math mindset. One of the things that I'd like to do was to start by setting some goals and celebrating successes. We looked at Mondays as a way to celebrate instead of dread. So we were celebrating Monday and each Monday I had a different activity for them to do. Every Monday I had them click on the activity and share a positive that they had. So you can see the example there for celebrating Monday they would click the add button. They decided how they wanted to share their positive. They'd be able you know to explain why they're looking forward to this positive thing in class. So that's just one example. I have some other examples here to share with you. Here's just one that a student decided they were just going to type it up as a text box or a label. So they were just giving me their example of how you know they were going to make their day amazing and better and really try to focus on you know getting help if they need help. So it's the little things like that that if you continuously do them throughout the year you really can see that student growth. This one along with a seesaw activity that I do have linked in here where we talked about how success is like an iceberg. You only see part of that iceberg and there's so many things that really are making up that iceberg beyond what you truly see. So this was a student response on what she thought as a seventh grade math student. She said people don't see all the practice and hard work you put into math class every day. They only see the success that you get on the test. So she's using seesaw to share that response. But I think keeping that positivity alive and well in your classroom is certainly something that you can't go wrong with. Another thing that I like to focus on with my students was what I called the power of yet. And that would be you know if the student said I can't solve that problem. I would encourage them to add the word yet on to the end. So by giving your students the power of yet maybe I can't balance equations. I can't use a protractor to measure my angle yet. But if I did this I would be able to if I asked for help if I practice. So maybe you could even think of one thing that you're not sure that you can do just yet. I can't do handstands just yet. Who knows if I will ever be able to. But if I practice on my strength and continue with yoga practice maybe I will be able to. Right. So think about how you could just add one simple word the word yet and provide opportunities for students. Here's a quick example. There we go. Very simple. Right. But but the power of yet was so effective especially with my seventh graders who are doubting so many things about themselves at that age that it really was a fabulous year using the power of yet. And then I took advantage of also really trying to get to know my students and building relationships. And one of the things that we did to celebrate Monday was called two stars and a wish where everyone had something that makes them feel proud. At least one thing if not two things two shining moments that made them feel proud about themselves. And then one thing that they wish that they knew their teacher knew about them as a student. So there were some pretty powerful responses here from my students as well. So they gave two shining moments you know good grades on an assessment working with partners in class. But they wish that I knew that they like answering questions and taking challenges in class. And that might not have been something that I knew. Another quick example here that they were believing in themselves as you get on the next math test and that they studied a lot and gave themselves extra practice. So maybe that's something that I didn't know about them. And you know I think it's pretty amazing when you start building those relationships with students and they feel comfortable enough to share with you their teacher. Differentiation is something that allows you know at any level an opportunity for students to have voice and choice in a way that best meets their needs. And I found over the years that I used seesaw for four years consecutive years in my classroom two with fourth graders and two with seventh grade math. And I just found that no matter what their needs were if they have 504 plans IEP's if they were academically gifted it or anywhere in between giving them an opportunity for voice and choice was so super powerful. And seesaw allowed me to do that. One of the ways that I'd like to do that was through math tic-tac-toe boards. A choice board would be another name for this. So if you've done them before I use them in math I use them in language arts and science a variety throughout my time teaching but you know I thought it was really powerful that I could adapt the boards to fit my units of study that I could adapt it to fit any grade level I was teaching that I could allow my students to you know follow the standards that I needed to teach through these boards and it wasn't just random things on here everything related and all of their answers were captured in seesaw. So I was allowing them choice because they got to choose whatever three they wanted and just to kind of bring your eye and your attention over here to the board on the left I had a free space in the middle and depending on the board sometimes I would let the free space truly be a free space or depending on the students and the board sometimes I would let the free space be an opportunity for them to freely choose an activity that might not have been three in a row like maybe they want to do these three in a row but they also like this example activity over here so they could slide it down in or free for them to create their own activity as well so you can adapt boards to you know to go with all different kinds of subjects and grades and student needs and I found that they were really great for differentiation I had quite a variety of students in my class and this is an example that came off the board to the left that was writing with integers they were writing a story using integers one day Mr. Mrs. Integer wanted to travel somewhere they decide the destination had to be above sea level represented as a positive integer and not below sea level which would be represented as a negative integer because they wanted it to be close to the mountains they then have to decide whether they want the temperature below zero degrees Fahrenheit or represented as a negative integer or above zero degrees Fahrenheit which would be represented as a positive integer okay so she goes on there but you know it's just taking those little things and allowing the students to have that voice and creativity and you wouldn't necessarily think that oh math she was applying what she knew about integers and her very short story there and it came right off of that choice board and fit with our math standards as well all right I also really like which one doesn't belong I'm not sure if you're familiar with that but there is a website for which one doesn't belong and I have over 30 differences activities that go along with that website that are linked on these slides that you're welcome to use and change if you would like but I like which one doesn't belong because the theory behind it is that math doesn't have to have only one correct answer so if you look at the example that you see there the 9 16 25 43 you might automatically be thinking oh well 43 doesn't belong because all of the other ones are squared numbers right well what if I told you hmm 9 doesn't belong because it's the only one that's single digit or what if I told you 9 doesn't belong because when you add the other two digits 1 plus 6 is 7 4 plus 3 is 7 2 plus 5 is 7 so right there I already have a couple different ways to justify my thinking and share my reasoning and I think it's important for our students that we share with them that there there's not necessarily one correct answer in math that as long as you can support and justify your reasoning there's plenty of you know plenty of opportunity for students to have you know different answers and still be correct because the way that they solve them might be different so here's you know just one quick student response students could choose how to respond however they wanted to so we had some audio responses I this was they were using text boxes here you know to put on with as labels basically but they're gay they gave multiple different situations and their reasoning behind it so there's a couple of examples ah goodness sorry about that there's other examples there if you'd like them another example that I have here is how I used seesaw to personalize a learning experience with my seventh graders and last school year at the beginning of the school year I had a student come up to me his name was Connor and Connor said Ms. Brem I really think we could we could play Fortnite in math class and I laughed at him and said oh Connor we're not playing Fortnite in math class and he kind of shrugged and walked away and the next day came back and he said I've been thinking about it I think we can do it and I was like oh good one Connor keep going and then he came back a third day and I said when he told me the same idea said we'll go home figure it out and maybe we can make it happen and we did the students were so interested now you know not every single one but we had a special group that came and met during a 30 minute block we have built into our schedule to allow personalized learning to allow for remediation to allow for miss work things like that but we had time to capture student interest and I had a nice group of students who were interested in this project-based learning who wanted fortnight and math to go together Connor came prepared and shared with me all the ways that he found that he could connect the seventh grade math curriculum to fortnight and I got goosebumps when I heard his ideas you know I think it's pretty amazing when students take learning in their own hands you can meet them where they are so much so that we took our learning and presented it at the North Carolina Technology and Education Society conference so the students were there presenting it and presenting their learning and I even took it even further and went to IST which is the International Society for Technology and Education in Philadelphia this past summer and presented this so if you're interested in learning a little bit more about what my students did you could click on the links or the pictures to the left and it will take you to a website that we created but a very quick example would be we use seesaw with it too because we captured our learning that they were able to take you know and this is a PDF that they created but they took the fortnight map and they were figuring out there's like a circle in it to call a storm circle if you know anything about fortnight that would make sense to you if you if you don't then just know there's a storm circle in there they figured out how long the map was relative to other places that they knew they figured out the diameter radius circumference and area of that storm circle so that's just one example of one thing that the students did that really made learning personal to them that really made learning meaningful and it met them where they were they captured their interest so think of when your students come to you and say crazy awful all things maybe not shoot them down the first time I mean I certainly learned my lesson as well so there's so many different ways that we can you know make learning and math work for our students if you would like more ideas people are willing to share within the seesaw community all the time if you're not already connected on Twitter to seesaw also connect you know to Instagram at seesaw learning and there are seesaw teachers pages on Facebook not only just seesaw teachers but individual grade levels so for example third grade seesaw teachers fourth grade fifth grade six seventh and eighth grade or lumped together and even high school so there are opportunities for you to connect with the seesaw community and share ideas and learn from others there are so many out there for you and again my name is Cara Brahm you are welcome to connect with me as well on Twitter or Instagram but I would like to share the last three digits for my friends listening on the recording the last three digits of the code that you should write down for the recording is four zero one but I think everyone for their time and hope that you're able to mash up some math as well