Your Name and Title: Chris Collins
School or Organization Name: Monticello High School
Co-Presenter Name(s):
Area of the World from Which You Will Present: Wisconsin, USA
Language in Which You Will Present: English
Target Audience(s): Middle and High School educators
Short Session Description (one line): Learning math from students around the world
Students from Monticello connect with students from the Czech Republic to share ways to solve math problems. We connect using tools at are readily accessible to all teachers. Learn how to find fellow teachers to collaborate with from around the world and learn how to get started. The world is only a few clicks away.
Full Session Description (as long as you would like):
Teachers tell students that there is more than one way to solve a math problem, but the best way to prove that to students is to have them see that for themselves. Hana Ulíková (a Czech Republic high school math teacher), and Chris Collins (a Wisconsin high school math teacher) started an Global Math Collaboration to have our students learn different ways to understand mathematics and to learn more about other cultures.
We first use the web based SMART amp program to create workspaces for students to solve problems asynchronously and then use that workspace to present their methods to solve the given problems. During the each synchronous collaboration, we have used Google hangout and now WebEx to connect the video and audio portion of our collaborations. We also use SMART amp synchronously to have students solve math problems at the same time.
Due to different school day schedules and a seven-hour time difference, we only had one day a week available to conduct our collaborations live. We were able to have at least one global math collaboration each month, and at least one cultural exchange every two months. Students on both sides truly enjoyed the collaborations and always asked when the next one was happening.
Each math topic we picked provided students an opportunity to learn different approaches for solving a math problem. Students from both sides saw that each culture has some similar and some different philosophies for solving math problems. Both Hana and I were surprised to see more differences in approaches for solving the same math problem than similarities. For example, the Czech Republic students prefer to solve system of equations by using a substitution method, while my students prefer to solve the same problems using an elimination method. When we conducted the solving quadratics collaboration each side demonstrated a previously unknown method of solving quadratic equations. This was an awesome moment were everyone in the connection learn something new. During each collaboration each side first shared their preferred way to solve the math problems, and then we would have students solve more problems using those new techniques.
The cultural collaborations are by far the most fun for the students to work on. My students love sharing how they celebrate Thanksgiving, Passover, Christmas, and Easter with the Czech Republic students. The Czech Republic students enjoy sharing with us their major holidays: the Velvet Revolution, Christmas, and Easter. Both sides listen intently and respectively to each of these presentations. My students are very impressed with how well the Czech Republic students speak English. Everyone gains a greater appreciation of each of the cultural differences and similarities.
Through this global project, we all gained a great understanding of each other and had fun learning more math!
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