Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog!
Wow it's been quite a while since my last blog post, but I am back and ready to chat! Today I really want to dive into how important it is to ask for help. I feel like a common misconception about teachers is that we know everything. Well, let me clarify that we most definitely do not know everything despite how cool that would be! Even teachers need help and have things to learn so it is so important that we do so whenever possible.
You see, being a teacher can create some really stressful and overwhelming situations. It is most definitely not your typical 9:00-5:00 job. Being a teacher does not stop. You wake up, go to school, and be a teacher just to come home and mark, lesson plan, and continue being a teacher! The silver lining is that if you love being a teacher, you are constantly doing what you love (I can't wait!). But of course I am not excited for this stressful and overwhelming feeling... so I am happy to share with you all the many resources that I have come across in teacher's college during my math course. These resources are websites that help math teachers immensely in enhancing their lesson plans and unit plans and provide teachers with new ideas on how to introduce different mathematical problems or concepts.
This semester of teacher's college has only recently begun but I have already found myself reflecting a lot. My math course has really opened my eyes to all of the help and resources that are out there to help math teachers succeed in the classroom. We are not alone! So let me begin by sharing with you all some of my favourite websites that I have come across that have many free resources available for math teachers!
1. OAME Website
OAME stands for Ontario Association for Mathematics Education. I am still quite new to this website so I still have not gotten around to exploring the entire site, however I have explored enough to know how resourceful it is. At first glance, this website was really overwhelming on the eyes, but once you know where to go to find what you need, it is much less stressful. My favourite section of the website is under grade specific resources where you can click whichever grade you are teaching from K-12. These resources all include lesson plans, unit plans, classroom resources, activities for students, creative ways to introduce new concepts, etc. I would use this website while lesson planning or unit planning to enhance the quality of my lessons and maximize student learning. This is an amazing website for both new teachers who are learning to lesson plan as well as teachers who have been teaching for a while and need some new inspiration!
2. EduGAINS
Some of you may have heard of this website already as it is quite popular. This website has it all. I have known about this website for some time now during my undergraduate studies, however I have found more use from it throughout teachers college. This website has an abundance of ministry developed resources but we are going to focus more specifically on the mathematics section. This portion of EduGAINS allows you to select which curriculum document you are focused on as well as many different sidebar options to select leading you to different resources. TIPS4RM is an amazing resource that stands for Targeted Implementation Planning Supports for Math. This link provides teachers with various ways to support students in their mathematics using a more targeted approach to the concept. Lessons and Supports is another section on EduGAINS that provides teachers with different teaching supports and resources such as apps, digital learning sites, and online manipulatives to help students learn. I would use this website for tips and tricks on how to enhance my lessons for math to better meet the needs of my students in more creative and engaging ways. Feel free to explore the EduGAINS website even further to see how many rich resources are available to us teachers!
3. Mathies
This website makes me feel like a little kid again! When I was in my fourth year of my undergraduate degree, I had to explore this website to investigate its usefulness. Mathies is one of my favourite websites because it not only provides help to teachers, but it also provides help for students and parents/guardians! Mathies has five main components for their website: games, learning tools, activities, additional supports, and home supports. All of the components are useful for teachers to integrate within their lessons as well as for students to engage in for extra practice. Furthermore, the home supports link on Mathies provides parents/guardians with information about what their child is learning in school and ways that they can help. This website is so rich in resources in its ability to reach such a large audience and meet the needs of students, teachers, and parents/guardians. I would use this website both in my classroom and through assigned work. This website is great because I can give students work periods in class to practice through activities and games or I can assign them these activities to work through at home.
5. Wired Math
This website is also quite new to me but I have to say I love it! This website is a great alternative to the traditional way of teaching and learning mathematics as it allows students to engage in mathematics using technology in a fun and interactive way. Wired Math is a website that offers a bunch of different games that are organized according to the unit it applies to (i.e. patterning and algebra). What is really great about the games on this website is that they provide you feedback if you get the answer incorrect. Additionally, it meets students at their level of learning when it asks them to select the level of difficulty that they prefer. This is great because students can gradually advance in their level of difficulty through more practice. I would use this website to encourage students to engage in fun and interactive math problems. This is a great way to get students practicing their mathematical thinking skills while playing games.
There you have it! These are five of my new favourite math websites that help teachers enhance their lessons and can help students practice their math skills. Like I mentioned before, even teachers need help! There is no shame in asking for help because there is always something to learn. It is important that we, as teachers, always leave room for improvement and continuously try to better our approach to teaching because the education system is continuously changing. Let me know if you come across some more useful websites for a math teacher, I'd love to explore them!
Ms. Blackwell
