E m powering Students To Construct Their Learning

1. Empowering Students To Construct Their Learning A Path to Understanding How Learning is Constructed by Both Students and Teachers Fraser Gordon – Toronto, Ontario, Canada Charita Collins – PGCPS, Maryland, USA Rudy Neufeld – Author, UMathX

2. The Goal The teacher creates an environment that provides opportunities for rich exploration of the curriculum. In that environment, students will explore, build, and consolidate ideas and concepts. Students will realize that their success in learning is totally dependent upon their attendance, focus, participation and their positivity towards learning. They are the Builders. `

3. What Theory of Learning Empowers Students? UNDERSTANDING!

4. Questions Often Initiate the Process of Understanding Is that fire? Where was this picture taken? What is the bear doing? What time of day is it? What questions do you have about these pictures?

5. The Process of Understanding STM NONSENSE NONSENSE Traumatic events will move data directly to our LTM. New data enters our STM as nonsense, and will pass through as nonsense if no meaningful connections are made with it. Data is moved from our STM to our LTM in only two ways. TRAUMA UNDERSTANDING A REPEATING PROCESS of NONSENSE to SENSE What is the carrier from STM to LTM? We do not make sense of data and store it to our LTM until we understand it. SENSE LTM

6. The Hippocampus Its shape resembles a seahorse. It is the processing vehicle which causes the STM and the LTM to interact. The Hippocampus connects the brain’s neuro network with the STM to help find the context in the LTM where the data fits.

7. What Does it Look Like When the Hippocampus is at Work? “I don’t get it!” “Stop! Wait!” - The new data needs to be held in the STM a little longer. - The hippocampus searches again to find context for the new data. Still nothing? Send it through again. “I forgot!!! What did you say? I missed it.” - The hippocampus was still unable to find context for the data, so no connection to the information has been made yet. It may seem as if the information is lost at this point.

8. What Just Happened? Understanding the LTM LTM carries and stores everything put in it. Understanding is the pathway to and from the Long Term Memory You are not conscious of it until you call on it. You call on it by listening and focusing. You can also call on it by asking questions.

9. The LTM and Cognitive Hooks – (Neuro Circuits) How full is your closet? “Wow, Jenny got it right away. Why not me?” U n d e r s t a n d i n g “Why did Jenny learn faster? Imagine that your LTM is a closet. You need to already have something in your LTM to form a cognitive hook with new data in your STM. This allows the new data to be stored in an appropriate place in your LTM or your “closet.” The more data you have in your LTM or “closet”, the easier it is to find something to form cognitive hooks with the new data in your STM. In other words, it is easier and faster to add more data to a “fuller” closet. Facts Ideas

10. Understanding is Achieved by Associations This is nonsense! Do I recognize anything? Your first impression of this word may be that it is nonsense. However, after a second look, you will find that there may be some words or prefixes within the word that you recognize. Were you able to figure out the meaning of the word? antidisestablishmentarianism If you were able to recognize the words or prefixes, you called on information already stored in your LTM to make sense of something that was presented to your STM.

11. We now know: Questioning is the Path to Learning It takes knowledge to make knowledge. Our beauty as a species lies in our ability to formulate and express ourselves in questions. The more you know, the more you learn.

12. How Can UMathX Be Used to Help Students Begin the Process of Understanding? • UMathX is designed based on students understanding math processes rather than simply memorizing them. When introducing UMathX to a class, the focus of the lesson should be fully on the tasks rather than on the teacher. UMathX is a tool for the teacher and student to create knowledge. It is not a teacher replacement or practice work from teacher directed lessons. Strategically planning how to use UMathX is critical for it to do its job!

13. UMathX Lesson Analysis Technique Locate and Create the BIG IDEAS through Questioning. Questioning is the path to Learning. “How can we describe one of 3 equal parts?” “Why is it important for the parts to be equal?”

14. UMathX Lesson Analysis Technique Locate and Create the BIG IDEAS through Questioning. Questioning is the path to Learning. “What if washers were not of the same size?” “What if parts of washers were used?”

15. Questions, Questions, Questions • As students work through UMathX, they should be generating their own questions based on what happens as they move through the program. UMathX is helping them to • construct knowledge. • THE KEY realization… KNOWLEDGE IS CONSTRUCTED!

16. In Conclusion: At all ages, we are the builders of our own knowledge when we realize: Questions can be friendly. They can be tools that help us to understand – not always probes to see how much we know or don’t know. The teacher is not a teller but leads the students to grapple with ideas and concepts to constructnew knowledge through understanding.