If you haven’t seen this picture yet – kudos to you for avoiding the online world this weekend. As I continue to hear and read arguments over what colour this dress is, I consider the questions I ask students. With such varying levels of interpretation, it becomes incredibly clear how accurate I must be in […]
I haven’t removed a student from class in years. Partially due to the nature of our learning spaces (we don’t often work in a traditional class setting) and partially due to my own reflections. I must admit when I did send students out in the past, it was only because that happened when I went […]
In this post, we are going to determine plausible sizes of a Super Mario pipe. Let’s look at the curriculum expectations for grade 8 math: determine, through investigation using a variety of tools and strategies (e.g., generalizing from the volume relationship for right prisms, and verifying using the capacity of thin-walled cylindrical containers), the relationship […]
In this article we are going to write a tiny app to calculate the volume of a cylinder. My goal is to get students to deconstruct and understand the formula and then use their app to solve richer problems that require volume solutions. Let’s look at the Ontario curriculum for 3D Measurement – Grade 8. […]
I have been an active twitter-er since 2009 and have tweeted over 20,000 times. I’m not sure that is something to be proud of but I will archive it one of these days for a good laugh. Maybe I’ll publish it to some dorky book. “The tweets of Brian Aspinall”. Not worth reading… For me […]
What do you think? What does it look like? Is it still necessary? Sorry for being so long here this morning.
Happy term two everyone. I have been spending a great deal of time reading and re-reading Growing Success lately. It truly gives us as educators a lot of freedoms on how and what we assess but I am not sure many of us truly take advantage of it. Let’s dissect it a little. Evidence of […]
In this article we are going to code an app to find the area or circumference of a circle. The focus is grade eight numeracy for Ontario but can easily be adjusted for different shapes and polygons. I have found the retention of the formula is a bi-product of this process. Let us begin with […]
In this article we are going to explore a lesson involving the creation of a student product using Minecraft to demonstrate a growing linear pattern. This lesson is applicable to junior and intermediate grades here in Ontario but we will focus on specific expectations from grade 8. Not only are we covering the expectations below, […]
In this article we are going to demonstrate grade eight mathematics (growing patterns) by using computational thinking to support student learning in the 21st century here in Ontario. It is understood you have some knowlege of block coding (eg: Scratch). To begin, let us take a look at the expectations this task will cover. Overall […]
