Our youth, already, have so much to deal with in their lives. Unfortunately, for some of them, math anxiety can be just one more thing. If you want to learn more about how to help youth, in your classrooms, overcome their math anxiety click here to take you to the presentation the LAC offered on this topic.
Affecting the mindset of a youth is one of the first places to begin when considering how to help them overcome math anxiety. Below is an article, written by Dr Jo Boaler for the Atlantic, on developing growth mindset in the math classroom and a document explaining what happens to the brain when one is dealing with math anxiety. Mindset and Math Anxiety by cynthia on Scribd
The STEM Cohort is in full swing. Participants are learning useful skills and valuable tools. We would like to share some STEM tools with you! Below are links to great resources for STEM.
Two websites that provide engaging STEM lessons and activities. Try them with your youth.
Bringing Homeostasis to the Classroom. This open-ended simulation engages students in authentic scenarios illustrating the relationship of the external environment and the reaction of the body’s internal regulatory mechanisms and can serve as an effective introduction to generating questions for further exploration, i.e. how does exercise, clothing or sweating affect the body’s ability to maintain homeostasis. It also has a complete teacher’s guide that includes learning objectives, lesson suggestions, a timetable, follow-up ideas, background information, discussion questions, health connections and selected web resources. Here is the link to share: https://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cResource.dspDetail&ResourceID=519 Using local data to investigate climate change. A lesson idea. This lesson can be found on the Literacy Assistance Centers Adult Literacy Resources page. Be sure to discover other useful resources are on this site. Here is the link to share: http://dycdlacresources.weebly.com/uploads/8/7/6/5/87657784/lesson_idea.pdf
One method for engaging youth with technology is integrating it into all facets of your program. This will allow youth to strengthen their technical skills in numerous ways. Here are some useful tools.
Padlet https://padlet.com Padlet is an online white board or pad of chart paper. Padlet is free and easy to set up. People can join your Padlet without having an account themselves. It can be used for collaborative problem solving, sharing links, videos, audio clip, and documents. Or you can make a quick class website—with one URL your students can access all the content you want to share. Padlet is Mobile Friendly. Twitter https://twitter.com Twitter is a great tool for your own professional learning. Follow these folks on Twitter to start your own personal learning network: Math https://twitter.com/mtrushkowsky https://twitter.com/eappleton Science https://twitter.com/Tripps_Class Engineering https://twitter.com/LisaSeacat STEM https://twitter.com/TeachingSTEM STEAM https://twitter.com/ZachTayLibrary
The most important aspect of engineering as for all of STEM is to help youth learn to think like engineers...and scientists, and mathematicians. In our sessions we are learning that each of the STEM components all think in similar ways. Below is a presentation on how to provide instruction for engineering. It's called "What about the E?"
STEM What About the E by cynthia on Scribd
When engaging youth in meaningful mathematical thinking the best method is giving them reasoning and problem solving tasks. Not strictly computational or word problems, but tasks that require them to reason, draw conclusions, make connections and look for patterns. Below are three sites that can get you on your way.
Mathalicious A website filled not only with engaging tasks but also provides lesson plans for the busy instructor and student handouts. Inside Mathematics This link leads to the problem of the month page on Inside Mathematics. There are dozens of tasks and problems that are leveled for easy differentiation. 101QS This site is great for inquiry based learning, which is a pillar of engaging youth in STEM. We learned how to use inquiry based learning to spark curiosity in youth in the first STEM cohort session.
Below is a planning workbook for youth transitioning to adult life. There are a number of self-audits and inventories as well as templates for developing transition plans. You may view the file on the website or download it using the link under the embedded file.
Planning Work Book by cynthia on Scribd
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