This weekend I went to an Florida Council of Teachers of Mathematics (FCTM) math conference and heard one of my all-time favorite presentations. I've been to literally dozens of conferences in my career, so calling this a favorite really means it was great. The session was led by Jean Adams, a "born again" teacher who joined the profession in her forties. She is dynamic, energetic, and still in love with the job. Jean had a lot of ideas, but we spent most of the time building foldables, something I've never much been interested in. They feel kind of artsy, something that I do not do well. They require a little bit of 3-D visualization, at least at first. This is definitely my weakness. I looked around the room and everyone seemed to be getting it but me. I felt like I arrived late to a party. And not in a fashionable kind of way.
The good news is that I do know students need to learn in a wide variety of ways and foldables are a great means of engaging the kinethetic learner. Like any good teacher, I realize that even though I don't learn this way, I know a good thing when I see it. Foldables are definitely a good thing.
Jean had us build this review foldable for AP Calculus. It's a jam-packed full of calculus goodies. I can't wait to share it with my students this spring!
You can get the foldable for free here. You need to sign up for teachers-pay-teachers.
You can check out Jean's website for more great ideas here.
What do you think of foldables?
No comments:
Post a Comment