Blake Schildhauer

Mathematical Methods
Dr. Swartz
October 22, 2016
Reflection of MCTM
Wrong answers show some understanding, states John SanGiovanni from Howard
County Public Schools, the keynote speaker. SanGiovanni explained some of the concepts that
we have discussed in class, such as the low floor high ceiling concept for group worthy tasks,
which relate to his quote that students of all levels can try and have a basic set of mathematical
tools. He also discussed what makes certain mathematical tasks high quality. The suggestions he
made were that when analyzing tasks make sure that students are actively doing mathematics and
not using memorizations, as well as make sure the procedures help find connections between
concepts. Thus, making sure you do not fall into a bear trap where it may look like a great
activity, but actually is not very successful at helping students make those deep connections to
content. SanGiovanni discussed how the principles book made by NCTM we use in class, and
brings up important concepts to helping assess student work. I really liked how he said you need
to interpret, respond, and assess work frequently. This idea was something that we discuss, I just
really like how he explained the process and it is definitely something I plan to use when I
become a teacher.
Another very interesting session I saw was on using an assembly line activity in a
mathematics classroom in order to look at efficiency of a company. The instructor put five
students (us) in an assembly line to make a three link paper chain. One person had to cut the
paper into strips, another student taped the strip of paper to make a link, etc. After going through
the assembly line a couple times and changing the order of the operations to see if we could our
line the most efficient, we tried to come up with an equation that would model how efficient our

assembly line was. We looked at things like profit, time, cost, salary of workers, etc. The most
important part of this session were our group thoughts on how to apply this idea to our classes
we are teaching. One lady made some very good connections to line of best fit for an Algebra 1
class. I thought it might be a good task for the Algebra 2 students before the students do the
growth and decay section. Thus, I plan to use this similar concept in my classroom because I
think it a great interdisciplinary problem and really would get the students involved in their
learning.
The second session that I attended was very helpful and interesting. It was focused
around the book, Routines for Reasoning, which explained some helpful strategies on how to
help teach your students to problem solve and reason. She provided us with four essential
strategies as well as the Core Elements of Instructional Routines. The four essential
strategies were , ask-yourself questions, annotation, sentence frames and
starters, and the four Rs: repeat, rephrase, reword, and record. She gave us
an example of a teacher that used this idea, and the teacher made a public
record of all the students thoughts throughout a unit and hung them around
the room so they could remember their thought process and things like that.
My biggest takeaway from this session was the sentence starters. I really like
how that helps guide their thinking, such that eventually will be able to use
the model the teacher created on their own next time. She also explained
the Core Elements of Instructional Routines, which are a circle of Math
Practice Goal Individual Think Time Partner Work Group
Discussion Math Practice Reflection and repeat. I really like how you can
think of this as a circular map of learning. I think it really encompasses the

big picture of how we can create tasks that meet the standards that we are
trying to reach. She provided us with a strategies and resource page, which I
plan to use as well as buy the book she suggested!
Overall, the MCTM conference was very helpful, and I gained a lot of ideas from many
people for things that I hope to use in the future.