Professional Learning Network

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Rockin' Robin

My brain hurts. I just finished my first ever Twitter Chat and I feel like I ran a triathlon! Not only am I winded but I am also overtaken by the amount of positivity and shared resources that I gathered during the half-hour sprint.

Okay, let me regroup: Twitter. Prior to this course I thought that Twitter was outdated and one that was being phased out. I would hear about it through some hysterical Jimmy Kimmel skits
, bad social media experiences, or while my aunt was talking during a family dinner. I didn't really pay much mind to it except to get some juicy gossip or laughs on how things were misinterpreted. I would even ignore it when at professional developments the facilitators would start off saying, "we are on twitter! Retweet and see your name on the screen!" I would always sit back, sort of roll my eyes and think, "MAN - you all are OLD!"

I. Was. Wrong.
I have no problem admitting that I was wrong, either! You could actually feel the band of people getting together to reflect on the same educational trends that we are experiencing across the world (there was someone from Japan jumping in on the conversation!). Resources were shared, likes were given, comments were made. It was fast and difficult to keep up with, but it was also short and efficient. It left you continuing to think and see how you could expand on your reflection without going on a tangent. 

I participated in the #FormativeChat that occurs Monday nights at 7:30pm EST and was prompted with the following questions:
Image Source: @Rdene915 on Twitter
I participated, slowly at first...
And within a minute I already had 3 likes! WHAT?! Did this ever start to build up my confidence in a twitter chat! I even started to reply to another person's comment:


This continued as I continued to reflect and share on the prompts


One of my favorite responses I read throughout the quick #FormativeChat was one that is so simple and easy: 
How easy is that?! Start just calling it practice, because that is what it is intended for!

More Resources

Two other notable resources I found came from @Berkeley Everett.  Both I found would be a fantastic resource for some of our elementary teachers and students, or for our middle school teachers to use with some of their struggling learners:

This resource is great to actually see some of the many math strategies there are. I especially liked the multiplication ones and the part that asked, "what is the same? what is different?" as I felt that provoked the comparison reasoning we would like to see in students.

The other resource also came from @BerkeleyEverett as he retweeted a resource compiled by @MathCoachSutton regarding Math Flips. Math Flips

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Math Flips are flashcards with two similar problems on both the front and back that follows a routine: 
  • Look at side A: How many? How do you know?
  • Look at side B: How many NOW? How do you know?
  • After a while, ask generalizing questions such as: How does A help you solve B? What is the same and different about A and B?
It follows a similar sequence of Number Talks, which is a fantastic strategy to use in the classroom. I can absolutely see this being useful in our Academic Resource classes and I look forward to sharing it with my math teams!

Maybe Twitter is still just for old people. . . But I don't care. I feel as though I learned so much through these past few weeks.

Follow me at @KarynSoerens as I continue to learn more and take on Twitter!

Comments

  1. NMZumpanoDecember 3, 2019 at 3:55 PM

    Your enthusiasm jumps through the page! I am so happy to hear that you had such a great experience. The resource you found is one you can pass on to benefit others in a different PLN as well (your teachers). Kudos!

    ReplyDelete

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