Second+Sense+Workshop

Shana and I went to Second Sense at Region XIII on October 8. We received a book full of great ideas for teaching the second grade TEKS. We didn't go through all the activities. They showed us 6 activities that they felt would or might be confusing if we tried to do it on our own. By the way---one of the editors was our very own Beth Chinderle! As we went through the lessons, I made some notes of some things that I found interesting.

The first was TEK 2.1A The student will use concrete models of hundreds, tens, and ones to represent a given whole number (up to 999) in various ways. We made 3 digit numbers in many ways using manipulatives--hand, straws in groups of tens, dollars in ones, tens, and hundreds, and of course base ten blocks. They remarked that students need lots of counting experiences and grouping practice. I realized that this is where those counting collections should be incorporated in our instruction. I also thought that maybe we need to be testing that TEK the first nine weeks in a different way. I'm sure most of us are using predominantly base ten blocks, and that maybe students need more counting experiences first.

They explained the difference between a bar graph and a bar type graph. They said that on a bar type graph there don't actually have to be numbers, but that there is a one to one correspondence that students can see.

We did lots of practice with using different algorithms to teach adding and subtracting 2 digit numbers. I was a little confused about this, because I know we haven't had any algorithms on our test in the past, and I always understood that adding and subtracting should always be in the context of problem solving.

They showed us how questioning in patterns lays the foundation for thinking that goes all the way into algebra. Everything that we did, they kept repeating that questioning is very important for students to understand what to do. You don't just tell them a way, but you use questions to help guide them. That brought me back to the article we read last time at our meeting.

The keys that they kept reinforcing were to use the language, justify their answers (prove), and use guiding questions. These are important in all the grades. If you have a chance and are a second grade teacher, the workshop and book would be very helpful. I hope to use some of the lessons this next nine weeks and maybe will be able to share them at a later time.