Advance
excellent teaching
with Annenberg
Learner.
In the
Spotlight for April
Curriculum Focus: Using
Representations in the Math
Classroom
Current
Events
Beloved
Nigerian Writer Chinua Achebe
Passes Away
Connecting Learning with
Special Days
National
Poetry Month
National
Autism Awareness Month
National
Dance Week (April 26-May 5)
Jazz
Appreciation Month
Beginning
of the Civil War (April 12,
1861)
National
Environmental Education Week
(April 14-20) and Earth Day (April 22)
Kindergarten Day (April 21)
Notable April Birthdays
Eadweard Muybridge (April 9,
1830)
Johann Carl
Friedrich Gauss (April 30,
1777)
More April
Birthdays
Annenberg Learner
Announcements
Upcoming Conferences
Annenberg Foundation
Update
Annenberg
Space for Photography
Presents “WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY”
and
Teacher Resource Guide
|
|
Curriculum
Focus: Using Representations
in the Math Classroom
“Show your work.” Teachers
ask students to show their work
to get a glimpse of how
they are thinking through a
problem. However, showing work
is not just useful to the
teacher. When students create
representations (by drawing
charts and diagrams, using
manipulatives, etc), they
work through their understanding
of math concepts and develop
problem-solving skills. Find the
representation standards for
grades Pre-K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and
9-12 on the NCTM
Web site.
According to the NCTM
Representation Standard, instructional
programs . . . should enable all
students to:
• Create
and use representations to
organize, record, and
communicate mathematical ideas
• Select,
apply, and translate among
mathematical representations
to solve problems
• Use
representations to model and
interpret physical, social,
and mathematical phenomena
 The
Teaching Math online
courses look at various ways
students from grades K-12 may
represent their mathematical
thinking. Observe student
examples of representations and
practice using representations
to solve
problems. See the
session 5, “Representation,”
section of each grade band: K-2, 3-5,
6-8,
9-12.
See
examples of different
manipulatives in use for the
algebra classroom in Insights
into Algebra, workshop 1,
“Variables
and Patterns of Change.”
Examples include teacher-made
manipulatives -- cups
used to represent the
coefficient of the variable and
chips used to represent the
constant terms -- or
virtual manipulatives in the
form of a computer program
allowing students to examine
graphs of change.
Students estimate the number of
elk, bison, and pronghorn in
Yellowstone Park in program 6,
“Animals in Yellowstone,” of Teaching
Math: A Video Library, K-4.
At 11:50 in the video, the
teacher asks students to explain
and adjust their placement of
estimates on a number line.
Students work in groups to
identify a pattern and find a
rule that determines that
pattern in Teaching
Math: A Video Library, 9-12,
program 6, “Staircase Problem.”
Students must explain their
thinking using charts and paper
blocks.
More resources for using
representations in math
classrooms:
Private Universe Project in
Mathematics, workshop 6, “Possibilities
of Real Life Problems”
Learning Math: Number and
Operations, session 4, “Meanings and
Models for Operations”
|
|
Current Events
Beloved
Nigerian Writer Chinua
Achebe Passes Away
 The
world lost an important
voice with Chinua Achebe’s
death in March. Critics
consider the writer, born in
Ogidi, Nigeria in 1930, one
of the finest Nigerian
novelists. Chinua Achebe
eschewed trends in English
literature and embraced the
African oral tradition. See
the Chinua Achebe biography
page from In Search of
the Novel, Ten
Novelists, for
background on the author and
his writing style.
Achebe’s novel Things
Fall Apart asks
readers to consider what
they would do if their whole
way of living was suddenly
threatened by a group of
outsiders. Okonkwo, the
protagonist of this work,
faces the imminent influence
of British values on his
Nigerian Ibo community. The
Ten
Novels page provides a
synopsis and reviews of Things
Fall Apart. Anthony
Appiah, Achebe’s friend,
explains his view of the
novel Things
Fall Apart in
the program Invitation
to World Literature:
“One of the things that
Achebe has always said, is
that part of what he thought
the task of the novel was,
was to create a usable past.
Trying to give people a
richly textured picture of
what happened, not a sort of
monotone bad Europeans,
noble Africans, but a
complicated picture in which
mistakes are made on both
sides.”
In Teaching
Multicultural Literature,
workshop 8, “Social
Justice and Action,”
author Joseph Bruchac talks
about his friendship with
Achebe and how Achebe
influenced his writing.
|
|
Connecting Learning with
Special Days
National Poetry Month
 Help
your students develop a
sense of setting in poetry
by reading and discussing
the work of other poets, and
providing opportunities for
students to connect setting
with themes in their own
poems.
In program 12, “A Sense of
Place: Setting and Character
in Poetry,” of Literary
Visions, hear
readings and discussions of
Matthew Arnold’s Dover
Beach, and listen to
Maxine Kumin discuss
capturing New England
landscapes in her poetry.
Emily
Dickinson used her
science training to write
poetic observations of
nature. Her life and work
are discussed in Voices
& Visions.
Students can compare how
poets use images of a city
to describe the human
condition. See question 5 in
American Passages,
Context Activities for unit
10, “Rhythms
in Poetry:” How do
Eliot's London,
Sandburg's Chicago,
and Hughes's Harlem
all represent particular
interpretations of the city
and the modern condition?
For additional poetry
resources:
The Expanding Canon:
Teaching Multicultural
Literature in High School,
session 1, “Reader
Response: Pat Mora and
James Welch”
Teaching ‘The Children of
Willesden Lane,’
"Gaining
Insight Through Poetry"
Engaging With Literature:
A Video Library, Grades
3-5, program 3, “Starting
Out”
Write in the Middle: A
Workshop for Middle School
Teachers, workshop 3,
“Teaching
Poetry”
National Autism Awareness
Month
A report
issued by the Centers for
Disease Control and
Prevention in March 2012
concluded that autism occurs
in 1 in 88 births in the
U.S. While autism
causes difficulties in
social interaction and
communication, it is also
associated with strengths in
areas such as music, math,
and art. The following
resources provide
information to support
students with autism.
Dealing with short attention
spans can be very
frustrating. What actions
can replace the phrase “Pay
attention?” Neuroscience
& the Classroom,
unit 4, “Different
Learners, Different Minds,”
section 5, What teachers can
do, provides techniques
teachers can use to help
students decrease their
stress and increase
attention in the
classroom.
 Share
success stories with your
students. The video
page for section 4
includes video and audio
clips of Dr. Stephen Shore
and Dr. Temple Grandin
talking about their
abilities as individuals
with autism.
Dr. Grandin is also featured
in The
Brain: Teaching Modules,
module 29, “Autism.” This
program provides both a
historical perspective of
autism and current beliefs
about why autism
occurs.
The
World of Abnormal
Psychology,
program 11, “Behavior
Disorders of Childhood,”
looks at challenges and
solutions for families who
have children with behavior
disorders. Autism is
discussed specifically at
42:06.
National Dance Week
(April 26-May 5)
Get your
students dancing to the
rhythm of learning with the
following ideas:
 Teacher
Kathy DeJean’s students use
dance to brainstorm where
they will travel, and Scott
Pivnik’s young students
learn a West African dance
as part of a school-wide
study of Africa in The
Arts in Every Classroom,
“Teaching
Dance.”
Middle school students use
dance to explore the laws of
motion, and math students
interpret the idea of
circles using dance
movements in program 3, “Two Dance
Collaborations,” of Connecting
with the Arts: A Teaching
Practices Library, 6-8.
Watch a science teacher and
a dance teacher engage
students in a lesson on
anatomy as they attempt to
answer the question, “Can
Frogs Dance?” in
program 11.
For resources on Jazz
Appreciation Month, the
beginning of the Civil War
(April 12, 1861), National
Environmental Education Week
(April 14-20), and
Kindergarten Day (April 21),
see the April
2012 update.
|
|
Notable April Birthdays
Eadweard
Muybridge (April 9, 1830)
 English
expatriate Eadweard Muybridge
took daring steps, cutting
down trees and venturing into
dangerous places, to get
landscape photographs that
would distinguish him from his
contemporaries. See the story
of his shot, Falls of the
Yosemite, taken in 1872 while
on a six-month trip West in Art
Through Time, program
10, “The
Natural World.”
Read how Muybridge developed
photography techniques that
captured human and animal
movements in new ways in
American Passages, unit
8, “Regional
Realism.”
Muybridge also invented the zoopraxiscope
(image #8245 in the archives),
a device that projected a
moving image from still
sequences.
In the video for workshop 6, “Possibilities
of Real Life Problems,”
of Private Universe
Project in Mathematics,
ninth graders are asked to
solve how fast a cat, captured
in a series of photos by
Muybridge more than 100 years
ago, was moving in frames 10
and 20.
Find a slideshow of 17 of
Muybridge’s images of
Guatemala in Teaching
Geography, workshop 2, “Latin America.”
Below each slide is
information about the content
of each photo and questions to
compare the past with the
present.
Johann
Carl Friedrich Gauss (April
30, 1777)
Legend
has it that mathematician
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss
used signal fires and mirrors
to build a triangle on
mountaintops, the measurements
of which illustrated the
difference between lines on a
curved surface like Earth’s
surface and lines in a
potentially curved space. See
Mathematics Illuminated,
unit 8, “Geometries
Beyond Euclid,” section
4, Spherical and Hyperbolic
Geometry, to learn about Gauss
and his contributions to
mathematics.
For more April Birthdays, see
the birthday section of the April 2012
update.
|
|
Annenberg Learner
Announcements
Upcoming
Conferences
Join
us at upcoming conferences to
learn about our professional
development and student
resources for math and
science. We will be announcing
new resources in statistics
and chemistry.
National
Science Teachers Association
(NSTA), April 11-13, San
Antonio, TX, booth 1205
National
Council of Teachers of
Mathematics (NCTM),
April 18-20, Denver, CO, booth
1240
|
|
Annenberg Foundation
Update
Annenberg
Space for Photography
Presents “WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY”
WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY:
Images of Armed Conflict and
Its Aftermath is a new
photography exhibit at the
Annenberg Space for
Photography in Los Angeles,
organized by The Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston. The
exhibit runs now through June
2, 2013.
The exhibit encompasses over
150 images going as far back
as 1887 and is arranged by
themes presenting both the
military and civilian point of
view, including the advent of
war, daily routines, the fight
itself, the aftermath, medical
care, prisoners of war,
refugees, executions,
memorials, remembrance, and
more. There are many iconic
images in the show such as Joe
Rosenthal’s Old Glory Goes Up
on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima
and Alfred Eisenstaedt’s V-J
Day, Times Square, New
York.
Private
First Class
Wayne C.
Weidner, assumed
American, dates
not known.
Personnel of
Battery B, 937th
Field Artillery
Battalion, US
8th Army,
Attached to the
IX US Corps,
Fire Their Long
Toms on
Communist
Targets in
Support of
Elements of the
25th US Infantry
Division on the
West Central
Front, Near the
Village of
Nunema, Korea,
1951
The
Annenberg Learner
resource Primary
Sources, “Korea
and the Cold War: A
Case Study,”
provides a historical
context for the Korean
War. Use primary source
documents to teach your
students about how and
why America became
involved in Korea.
The
Educator Resource Guide for
WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY is now
available for teachers and
students. The packet has been
created for teachers to use
in-class and/or during a
visit. Click here
to download the guide. Due to
the nature of the content in
this exhibit,
it is recommended for ages 14
and older.
Keep up with news and
information about the Annenberg
Foundation by
subscribing to one or more of
the Foundation
newsletters.
|
|
|
Sign up to
receive messages
highlighting the news,
events, and programming of
Annenberg Learner, as well
as ideas for using our
resources in the classroom.
|
|
