Twitter Creates an Audience

Twitter creates an audience to learn with and share your thinking with. (part 3 in a series)

This is really a closer look at how twitter tweaked my classroom. One of the best projects we were a part of this year was Math Talk Grade One (#mtgr1). It was simple, yet powerful. Each Sunday evening Leka DeGroot (@lekadegroot), would post an open ended math prompt. Most times it was a photo with the simple question, what math do you see? There were other questions as well.

Throughout the week, classes who followed the hashtag would respond. As you look at the tweets below, you can see the responses were done in several ways: pictures, manipulatives, drawings, apps, words, however a student wanted to respond. The answers were also different. There was never one correct answer. It allowed for creative, exploratory and differentiated math thinking.

As a teacher I discovered a lot about my students. I could see from their responses a great deal about their mathematical thinking. My students learned a lot about math as we looked at and discussed the many responses from other students.

When we began, we did this together. They may have responded individually on paper, white board or with tools. I would take a photo and tweet it out. By the end of the year, they were tweeting out responses (with teacher approval) on their own.

Look at the sampling of wonderful learning that occurred this school year from the classrooms involved. If you care to see more, just search the #mtgr1 hashtag. Twitter: a place for many to come together to learn, discover and enrich our classroom math experience.

 

 

I was sad I would be missing out on #mtgr1 this school year, since I am moving to 2nd grade. The content Leka posts is focused on 1st grade skills. If you are a first grade teacher, I encourage you to be a part of this. She will continue to post every Sunday evening, beginning some time in September.

I have decided to host a #mtgr2  I will follow Leka's example with open-ended prompts and post them on Sunday night as well. My posts will focus on 2nd grade skills.

I believe another teacher will also be posting for #mtgr3.


I hope you will join us on the learning this school year. Feel free to ask any of us questions if you are uncertain.

On another note, there will also be a math story challenge going on for all grade levels on twitter. You can read about that one here. Another great opportunity on twitter!