Mathematical Thinking - 100 questions

Think about the questions that you ask in your math classroom. Can they be answered with a simple “yes” or “no,” or do they open a door for students to really share their knowledge in a way that highlights their true understanding and uncovers their misunderstandings? Asking better questions can open new doors for students, helping to promote mathematical thinking and encouraging classroom discourse. Such questions help students:

• Work together to make sense of mathematics.
• Rely more on themselves to determine whether something is mathematically correct.
• Learn to reason mathematically.
• Evaluate their own processes and engage in productive peer interaction.
• Discover and seek help with problems in their comprehension.
• Learn to conjecture, invent and solve problems.
• Learn to connect mathematics, its ideas and its applications.
• Focus on the mathematical skills embedded within activities.

Click here for the 100 questions from mathematics expert Dr. Gladis Kersaint to help you address these core areas and promote mathematical thinking and discourse in the classroom. For more, please download Dr. Kersaint’s new whitepaper:Orchestrating Mathematical Discourse to Enhance Student Learning.

Becky Murkley updates on WI Biographies -

We’ve been fielding all sorts of inquiries about this project and are super pleased to announce the launch of our newest grade 3-8 resource, Wisconsin Biographies!

Wisconsin Biographies is a collection of free educational, online media resources to enrich your social studies and literacy curriculum, using the stories of famous people in Wisconsin history. Educational materials include:

- short animated videos,

- leveled printable books and ebooks (available free on the iBookstore),

- cross-curricular online activities for students,

- a gallery of historic images,

- teaching tips (short, flexible lesson plans) tied to fourth grade academic standards.

Students can define, analyze, compare and contrast historical figures, time periods, eras and themes, including westward expansion, slavery, women’s suffrage, innovation, and civil rights.

We send out an especially warm thanks to all of the Wisconsin educators who lent their time, expertise and support to advise on and test this project.

Please share this cost free resource with other educational professionals and celebrate with us by entering to win a complete set of classroom trading cards and printed stories that students will instantly love on any of our social media platforms: newsletter, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

For twenty-one more streaming multimedia social studies resources, visit WIMediaLab.org! Please let us know if you have any questions!

Becky Murkley

EDUCATIONAL PRODUCER

ECB | Wisconsin Media Lab

T 608.264.9640 | F 608.264.9622

I am happy to say I worked with Becky when she was a 2nd grade teacher and she was awesome.  She loves the outdoors and getting kids involved in learning with hands on, exciting curriculum.  

Context Clues a strategy for develop meaning not to help with decoding

Every day I learn something new, I call it my nugget for the day.  While at the PALS conference today with the reading teachers Jenny Ried, a PALS consultant, spoke shortly about not using context clues as a rescue reading strategy when decoding a difficult word.

I pondered on that and wanted to learn more about why, when and to talk about how that would play out into a classroom's guided reading time.  I was able to ask the question but the question was put on hold probably due to time in the session.

That is where the internet and strong site sources comes in handy.  I spent a short bit of time and totally agree with what she said.  This particular article really explains what she stated in a bit more detail.  Thus my golden nugget for the day.  Let me know what you think, what questions you have, etc.  Kathy

Louise Spear-Swerling

The Use of Context Cues in Reading

November 2006

When children encounter an unfamiliar word in reading, they may make use of context cues, that is, information from pictures or from sentences surrounding the unknown word. One of the most misunderstood topics in reading instruction involves the extent to which children should be encouraged to rely on context cues in reading. In part, this confusion stems from the popularity in education of theoretical models of reading that do not reflect scientific evidence about how children learn to read. Another source of confusion is the failure to distinguish the use of context cues in word identification from the use of context in comprehension. 

Click here to read the whole article.