Vocabulary

This post is inspired by a twitter exchange with the awesome Joe Schwartz (@JSchwartz10a) and by a running exchange with one of my Geometry students. Joe tweeted out the following picture: 

The picture was accompanied by the question : “Do 3rd graders know the answer to this question? Truly curious.” It just so happens that my Lil Dardy is in 3rd grade. I showed her the question and (briefly) explained the equation written. I replied to Joe that she was not surprised to see it written that seven sixes is the same a five sixes plus two more. However, she did not know any vocabulary word to describe this. Joe replied, succinctly, “And she doesn’t need one…” It made me smile. It also made me think when I was reviewing for a test with one of my Geometry classes. We just finished a chapter on triangle bisectors and centers. Loads of vocab in this chapter. Very few new skills, just new words describing relationships. Thinking back to the exchange with Joe I found myself questioning my decisions in writing the book and in teaching this chapter. During the test review a student asked if there would be any vocabulary on the test. This particular student has asked this question before just about every test. I answered the way I do just about every time. I told him that he needed to know what these words mean to accurately interpret the questions at hand. For example, if I ask about altitudes to a triangle, he needs to know what that means. However, there would not be a question where I simply ask him to replicate the definition of an altitude. Thinking back on this exchange, and this way that I answer the question, I have a ton of questions that I need to ask myself and I will start by posing some of them  my readers out there.

  • My guess (an uncharitable one) is that the student asking about vocabulary is looking to avoid committing anything formal to his short term memory before a test. Admirable in a certain way, but what does this question say about what he thinks his job on a test is? Why would students who have been working with words day after day express any serious concern about being asked what those words mean?
  • Real people have real vocabulary that they use in their studies, in their work environment, etc. I recoil at the suggestion that I should do something objectionable now because someone will do it to my students later. But, I am beginning to wonder whether I am cheating my students a bit. Should I be more emphatic in urging them to be careful about vocabulary now so that they will better understand what they read or hear later? Am I being lazy when I let them casually refer to the longest side of any triangle as the hypotenuse? [Note: I have written about this before. I DO correct them, but in a pretty gentle, nudging way. I remind them every time that the hypotenuse is a specific name, but this habit has settled in with my students for a couple of years now.]
  • What are we communicating to our math students if we mark points off or hold them accountable in some ways to formal language if they can get their mathematical ideas across through their work? Are these skills dependent upon one another? Is it okay that my students can swing into action and write the equation of an altitude of a triangle but be uncomfortable and vague if asked to write a definition for what an altitude of a triangle is? As someone who is so comfortable with these words, I struggle to understand how someone can write that line without being comfortable that they can write a definition, but I’ve been teaching long enough to know that this is a real thing.
  • Is this another instance where students have been trained to think that there is one right way to answer a question and their job is to make sure that they simply regurgitate (if they can decode correctly) what that correct answer is. I, of course, hope that my grading policies and the way that I communicate in class convinces my students that this is not the way life is in my classroom. However, I know that I am battling impressions that have formed over years.
  • More importantly – Does it matter that my students know things like the altitudes of a triangle intersect at the orthocenter? Is there ANY chance that they will remember this in a few months? In the past few years I taught the course, I pretty much only mentioned the word centroid and avoided talking about incenters, circumcenters, and orthocenters. I am not at all sure that I made the right decision then or that I made the right decision this year in explicitly defining them. In my text the words centroid and incenter are explicitly defined. Circumcenter and orthocenter do not even appear in the text. A mistake then? A mistake now? I’d love to hear some advice/opinions.

Gotta get dressed for school now. More thoughts swirling and I hope I am disciplined enough to get them down soon.

Thanks to Joe for prompting this post!

As always, you can reach me here in the comments section or over on twitter where I am @mrdardy

Greetings, 2018

A non-mathy post for this morning. I feel like I need to clear my head out a bit here.

 

  • Thanks to Meg Craig and the #Fitbos gang for helping to keep me motivated this past year. I set two goals for myself with my trusty fitbit flex. I wanted to accumulate an average of 30 minutes per day at an ‘active’ level. I compiled a total of 207.45 active hours. Last time I checked my multiplication, this exceeds my goal! I also set a goal of walking 2017 miles in 2017. I ended up at 2050.16. I am pretty pleased, but time is still working against me, despite this level of activity I am more achy and a bit paunchier than I was this time last year. Have to ramp it up to fight against Father Time.
  • Thanks to connections that my wife has at her college I was able to score a gig as a DJ at the local college radio station. Almost every Thursday since June, I have had the great pleasure of spending two hours (from 4 – 6 PM ET on wrkc.kings.edu) playing pretty much whatever music amuses me on terrestrial radio. I have been compiling playlists over at Spotify where you can search me up as mrdardy. It has been one of the real joys of my life this past year.
  • Mostly a consequence of my DJ gig, I have listened to more new music released in 2017 than any year since the birth of my son in 2003. It feels great to be reminded of the pleasure of discovering new music again. I still feel a bit overwhelmed when I read Best of lists at the end of the year, but there is a better chance of me knowing a number of items on these lists than I have had in years.
  • At work we have had a couple of important changes. We moved to a new, rotating schedule. We have 7 periods, 5 of which meet each day. In a seven day cycle each class meets five times. Four of the meetings are 50 minute classes (every once in a while an assembly moves that back to 45 minutes) and meets once for a 90 minute block. This has been a great change in our daily lives.
  • In our department we adopted a test correction policy where all students are allowed to earn back points by reflecting on their work. We ask them to submit corrections in the form of pointing out where/what went wrong in the problem’s work and then correcting said problem. I am super excited about this project and I see students being really thoughtful and attentive in submitting these corrections.
  • My life at school has been a bit more hectic than I’d like, despite the change in schedule. I have five classes this year (more often than not, this has been my standard work load here) which is especially manageable in this new rotation. What has been tiring is that I have four different class preps. Keeping all these trains running in my mind, especially since my two Geometry classes are rarely ever aligned anymore, has been a tiring challenge. I think being 53 and having a 14 year old boy and an 8 year old girl in the house has an impact as well!
  • I was able to attend TwitterMathCamp for the fourth summer in a row. As an added bonus, this past year did not conflict with my daughter’s birthday. Another bonus was that Atlanta is the home of an old high school buddy who was also my first college roommate. I had not seen him in years and had a lovely night with him and his family on a warm southern night, hours spent on his porch catching up was a delight.
  • My time at TMC was followed by a trip to FLA that included a couple of nights catching up with friends in my old hometown of Gainesville. Had not been there in a few years.
  • My school is a PK – PG school on two campuses. We live on the upper school campus, the lower school is about three miles away. My son is in 8th grade and he and his pals will be in my hallways in 8 months. Exciting and scary at the same time!
  • My wife is nearing the end of her Master’s Degree program. It’s been fun listening to her talk about her school experiences. It has been ten years now since my course work last ended. I’m a bit jealous, I think.
  • Off to face the new day, the new year, I guess, now…