Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

I love this organization!  This public/private organization is dedicated to educating our youth so that they are better prepared for the workplace and the skill we are predicting they will need.  This website is very well laid out and gives a lot of great information for educators, policy makers, and the general community.  They fuse all of the skills we have taught in the past with the 4C's; critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

I like that there is a support system built into the website with documents and blogs.  There are also toolkits for implementing the skills with the Common Core standards.  I also like the simple graphic they use to show how all skills are interconnected supported by standards, curriculum, professional development, and environment.

I can see this being a very useful website when implementing the 21st century skills into the classroom.  The implications for your students are endless.  When fully implemented I can see producing the most prepared students for the workplace than ever before.  You need to visit the site so you too can be prepared to integrate the skills and prepare your students for success!

To blog or not to blog?

I have yet to try blogging in my classroom but I am very intrigued.  I teach 8th grade math, ELA, and study skills to the same group of twelve students.  They are in my classroom most of the day and we build a definite sense of community.  Even with the community we build, I have several students who are terrified to share their work out loud with their classmates.  I believe blogging may be a great tool that will assist them in sharing in a different way. 

Some of the ways I envision using a blog in my classroom is journal responses to prompts related to the stories we are reading.  I can see my students being excited to respond on the post and anxiously wait for someone to respond.  My students like to share their ideas, but sometimes are very impulsive and do not always want to listen to others.  In this controlled environment, not only can they share their ideas, but also will have to attentively "listen" or read their classmate's posts so they can appropriately respond.  I would definitely start small and once they have mastered posting and responding withing a controlled "class only" environment, then we could expand to a larger audience.

This is just one idea, but I can see how the ideas are endless and you can do as much or as little as you would like to!

I am interested in any great blogging ideas to use in a math classroom.

Lesson Idea of the Week? "Pi" Day!!

     Thursday is March 14, which to all math teachers means "Pi" Day!  A day to celebrate the constant that keeps computers buzzing trying to find its last digit.  Are you looking for ideas to help your class celebrate?  Try a few of the ideas below.  Most of them are on my list of planned activities.

• "Is it a coincidence?"  Bring several circular items and tape measures.  Have students measure the circumference and diameter of each circle and divide circumference by the diameter.  Share results with the rest of the class.  No matter the age, students are amazed that all answers are close to being the same.
• "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi"  A great way to bring literature into the math classroom.  This is a great book that references many math vocabulary words.
• "Pi Music"  I play a few videos for my students that they enjoy.
• The first several digits in a song:  Pi Song
• The history of Pi to the tune of "American Pie":  Mathematical Pi
• Pi on a musical scale:  What Pi Sounds Like
• "Pi"e!  I bring in pie or pi shaped cookies to enjoy with our festivities!
• "Pi pencils" This year I ordered pencils with the first 50 digits of pi.

Whatever you choose to do, I hope your Pi Day is "PI"TASTIC!  Please feel free to share your ideas!

**Bonus:  Pi Day is also Albert Einstein's Birthday!