Keep Manipulatives Simple

 I love manipulatives! I find them to be the most underused teaching tool. But, they can also be the most overthought teaching tool. With an overwhelming myriad of choices, the best can become the enemy of the good. 

I try to keep my manipulatives simple, especially for younger children. Look to use toys and items already on hand. When learning grouping and counting some easy manipulatives include Lego, blocks, sunflower seeds, and yarn (this is an often overlooked math manipulative, but it works well for multiplication and division when folded back on itself).  Using measuring cups and spoons for fractions works well if you have a set to show how they build to a complete unit. I’ll let the children practice with water, sand, or flour. Science manipulatives can also be kept simple, so don’t go overboard on Pinterest.

Using manipulatives for writing seems obvious for younger grades, but tends to be overlooked as children get old. I encourage the use of objects to help develop the writing skills of description and varied vocabulary for older children. Providing an object gives them ways to be specific without having to hold previous details they imagined in their heads. I will also only allow the use of each descriptor once, so they have to incorporate new words. 

Finally using manipulatives in social studies can become challenging. Again I return to the use of toys on hand for them to try to layout old technologies, like irrigation in a sandbox or the layering of Roman roads. I’ve even made an Asian medicinal herb garden out of five pots once, so they could add taste to their understanding of another culture. While I encourage moderation in searching for math and science ideas, I find there to be a dearth of ideas for social studies and encourage Pinterest exploration here.  

While not easy, mixing in manipulatives for all subjects will help children engage all senses and parts of their brain in processing information. It will provide a natural break from using the screen for learning and help make lessons a positive experience for kids. 

Student Tip #1: Write Things by Hand

 Companies try to sell us on the power and improvements of technology all the time. And some things have made life easier, but not all technology improves learning. As it turns out, paper and pencil give students an edge technology hasn’t been able to replicate yet. 

It’s easy when doing distance learning to try and complete all work on the computer, but students who do this miss using vital parts of their brains for learning, Writing freestyle on paper has been associated with engaging both the motor skill and reading portions of the brain, when compared to typing or tracing. Encouraging students to work out problems or write their ideas first on paper can help engage all parts of the brain in learning, even when they are just watching a lecture or reading instructions from a computer.

Taking notes is the next level of engaging the brain in learning. Several studies have shown that handwritten notes offer several advantages that have not been replicated by computer note-taking. A key study from 2014 linked this advantage to how note-taking by hand forces students to adapt what is being said into its component ideas to record it instead of the verbatim transcription of statements that many do when taking computer notes. Older students may need to be encouraged not to just copy what they see on PowerPoint, but to identify the key phrases (which might come from PowerPoint) and then add an explanation of those key phrases in their own words.  

Students as young as second grade should be encouraged to begin learning note-taking skills if they are distance learning. Distance learning requires students to make more use of resources away from the teacher (which is a valuable skill for life and to encourage independence). While younger students shouldn’t have pages of notes, they should be encouraged to begin to write several sentences to remind themselves of steps or ideas in math and science. They can also write brief descriptions of new ideas from other projects just enough so they have reminders when asked to explain what they are doing. Asking a child to put their assignments and concepts into their descriptions helps to reinforce that they have correctly understood the ideas and allows them a chance to organize the idea in their brain before being asked to apply it. This will help your child to avoid learning simply by rote repetition.

Some children will initially resist writing by hand because many have been taught to be passive learners where the teacher takes the initiative to provide all written material. To them, writing is busywork that can be judged instead of a tool for learning. You can reshape their habit of avoiding writing by starting with having them write two key ideas they learned after every lesson the first week. The next week they can do three key ideas and keep growing from there. 

Note-taking is a skill that will develop over time. Focus on the fact that it isn’t about what is in the notes at first, but about teaching your child to learn in a new way and that will take time. 

What to Realistically Expect From Distance Learning This Year

 As students head back to school most parents face a difficult choice. We know our public school system doesn’t have the resources to handle proper distancing and cleaning, especially with budgets shrinking. But, for many online learning didn’t keep their child on track in the spring. 

First, the cobbled-together spring experience didn’t represent proper distance teaching in any way. Teachers did the best they could with limited resources, training, and planning.  Children had no time to adjust and be taught proper distance learning protocol and responsibilities. And, unfortunately, many schools this fall will not offer any better experience. 

School cannot be entirely planned in one week of pre-planning. While some teachers do take summer entirely off, most teachers use the time to improve their skills, learning new teaching techniques, plan their classroom, and other preparation activities. With the constant uncertainty of how school would look this year, many teachers couldn’t focus on what new skills they would need this year. While some school districts offered distance skills courses, few made them mandatory. So, some teachers will come back with improved distance learning skills, not all had the incentive or opportunity. 

Even fewer families spent the summer ensuring their child acquired the skills needed to succeed in distance learning. Students provide a large part of the equation for successful learning and schools spend a lot of time (especially with younger children) teaching them the skills they need to become better learners.

For in-person learning, that means learning how to sit in your space and ignore the distractions of others around you, how to know when to pay attention to the teacher and when you should know what to do on your own, and how to interact with the teaching tools of a classroom.  Most of us don’t think of this as behaviors that support in-person teaching, but we all understand behavioral issues at schools can be roadblocks to learning.

Distance learning requires other skills from students. Students are less likely to be distracted by the other students, but procrastinators may push off completing a task, because the schedule for different activities is not so rigid when you're not trying to get 25 children to stay on a task together. Also, few students feel they need to take notes, because online environments allow them often to replay things if they miss something the teacher says. Not writing things down adversely affects learning.

While families cannot control how the teachers or schools choose to offer an education this year. What you can control is how you help your child deal with distance learning. For the next few weeks, I will focus on skills for children that will make distance learning more effective.  I'll start tomorrow with writing things down. 

Helping with Math Homework

 Parents generally don’t want to be teachers and most don’t want to be math teachers. Partly, this comes from many people having problems with math education when they were young; other times it comes from the changes to math education in the last ten years. I wasn’t thrilled initially to have to relearn basic math. After doing it my mind changed. 

That said, you can still help your child with their math without becoming their math teacher or relearning basic math. Keep in mind that most schools have turned your child into a passive math learner. We teach children to sit quietly and wait for someone to tell them what they should know and then we test them on getting the right answer (not on how they think things through or knowing when to use different skills). When you start working with these steps, some children will resist and shut down. But, gently leading them through the process of talking (not the process of math) will enable them to regain control of their learning.

First, always have your child explain what they do understand. A common reply (especially at the start) remains. I don’t understand any of it. This is frustration speaking because we taught them to focus too much on the end answer. To overcome this, I have them select a problem and rewrite it on a blank piece of paper. Then ask questions such as: what kind of numbers are these? what are doing with them (adding, grouping, multiply, etc.)? and can you draw them in a picture or on a number bar? Focus on what they know first to help them find the steps. 

Next, ask them to look at the example from class and see which steps they can do. If they find a step they struggle with, you can skip it and see if they can explain to you any of the later steps. Again, you aren’t trying to teach them the steps, you need them to identify where they are confused or making a mistake. Don’t focus on correcting them, it is fine to let them make mistakes and get steps wrong when they are explaining it to you.

At this point, you have two options. You can intervene and try to teach them the skill, but be sure to use the example to have them work the problem the way they will be expected to in class; or you can have them articulate 2-3 questions to take to their teacher, tutor, or sibling.  As long as they show that they attempted each problem and have written as much as they can, it still counts as doing their homework. Homework is meant to be the practice of a skill, not demonstrating perfection. If you help them learn to craft specific questions to take back, where they can show what they know and where they get lost, it is more likely a teacher can help them quickly recover. They also learn the valuable skill of learning how to ask for specific help, which I see even adults struggle with sometimes. I usually recommend parents start with this approach, because it enables the child to gain more than math skills and it helps the teacher understand what challenges your shield might specifically be having. It leads to an overall better school experience.  

Unfortunately, children sometimes end up with a teacher not suited to their personality and learning style. Sometimes teachers just don’t have the experience or training to adapt to working with children who don’t learn from their preferred teaching methods. If you want (or need) to try to teach them the skill, I encourage using the drawing to demonstrate the idea before trying the computation. You can also provide manipulatives, so they can see how a wrong step doesn’t get them where they want to go. Point out where they got the steps correct and them where they missed a step or did them in the wrong order. Have them practice one with guidance. Then have them complete one while explaining to you what they are doing. Follow the process of having them articulate the math process to you until they get it right (or finish their homework). Then let them complete the rest on their own. 

Helping with math homework doesn’t need to turn households into battle zones. By focusing on teaching your child to take control of their learning instead of just trying to teach them the math skill immediately in front of them, you commit to making math easier for them in the long run. 

I Never Use Advanced Math

I’ll admit, I’m a science nerd and love logic problems. However, numbers and calculations don’t sing for me like they do for some people. I’m a word person. And my adult life has not required me to do calculus unless I’m helping a student to do calculus. But, it drives me nuts when I hear adults tell students you won’t use this in the real world. 

First, attitude shapes learning. If a student thinks that they are being required to learn something hard and useless, they will put in the minimum effort not to fail and avoid steps that put the ideas into their long term memory. This leads to students who struggle in math continuing to struggle because they don’t retain learning year to year.  Don’t handicap students like that. 

Second, you use math more than you realize. But, at some point the math you use became easy and you no longer think of it as math. In fact, you may have learned it integrated into another skill, so you missed you were learning math (I can write a lot more on why teaching math in a silo causes problems and makes it harder to learn). 

One of my favorite stories about this involves my incredibly intelligent and educated sister-in-law. As an archaeologist, she loves fieldwork, but specializes in writing reports that summarize surveys and provide the maps to clients of what was and was not found. She saw me provide a quick text answer for a trigonometry student once and commented on how much she hated algebra and trigonometry and was happy her job didn’t require her to do advanced math. I looked at her dumbfounded and inquired if she didn’t have to map the surveys and do the placement calculations from field measurements for her reports. She casually replied, “I have to do survey stuff for all the reports, but that’s archaeology, not math.” My brother couldn’t stop laughing. Because she learned to do these calculations in an archaeology class and no one called it trigonometry she was honestly convinced it was not math. 

Third, students who take this to heart will miss out on a lot of career opportunities, because as technology proliferates, so does the need to understand math to use machines. Very few jobs will require a firm grasp of all the math covered in school, but many require people who can understand that math ideas exist to answer questions that come up in their lives and jobs. If you cannot ask a computer the correct question, you cannot get the answers you need.  Even if the student may not need to do all the calculations themselves in the future, they will need to understand the concepts well enough to know what information they can get to help them make good choices. 

So, whether your student studies at home or in person, when they bring you math questions, please never express that you hate math or think they won’t need to learn this because you don’t need it for your adulting. Realize that beyond what you say about that problem that an adult’s attitude and frustrations can make math harder for children. Next, I’ll give specific tips for how to help your child with their math questions, even if you don’t understand what they are doing.

Learning Takes Space

I’ve learned over the years that while technology makes a lot of work easier, it doesn’t
reduce our need for workspace. I hear everyone dream of small backpacks and doing
everything on an easy to carry a tablet, but I don’t see it working out that way. As I write
this, I sit in front of two large computer monitors,an open notebook, a stack of small
notepaper, and I have my tablet handy in case I need to consult another screen. 

I’m always amazed that people have this illusion that someone can read or hear something
once and retain enough of an understanding to apply it properly. This sometimes happens
if it involves a small tweak to something we are familiar with doing or if you have one of
those mythical Sherlock memories that I have read about, but never actually encountered.
We constantly go back and consult the source of information the first time we work through
a new activity. Parents trying to set their children up to succeed should assume that the
child will need to review what they are trying to apply at least as often as you need to
remind them to pick up their stuff. 

While every child may not need the picture-perfect study area in a quiet remote place, the
basics learning needs will remain. A child should always have spare paper and pencil or pen
while learning. The learning connection between writing information and the brain is well
established.Science clearly supports the use of physical muscle memory to aid learningEven if your child never reviews them, taking notes or practicing skills offers a crucial step
in understanding.

We also need to be able to look at explanations while trying to answer questions or work
problems. I’ve never understood why everyone got excited about books and school work
being able to be done on the same tablet. Ideally, students will have two screens (even if
they are not on the same device), so they can look at the book while doing the work online.
When I work with students at school  I often find myself putting their textbook or source
material on my tablet, so we can look at both. If they are learning at home, it is ideal to get
an extra monitor for their laptop or an extra tablet for them to prop up and consult. 

I understand that not everyone can manage to get all the electronic real estate needed for
optimal working conditions. If an extra screen isn’t an option for budget, space, or travel
reasons, then paper becomes crucial. Encourage your child to take notes on physical paper,
so they can look at that while trying to work a problem. 

I also encourage you to give them the tools to create what they are trying to learn. If you
have a young child doing math, provide legos, blocks, paper shapes, or whatever you have
on hand to let them count out representations of numbers and groupings (I'll discuss
manipulatives in more detail later, but kids will find a way to use them that makes sense to
their brain if they have access). Old students should have access to rules (or something with
a traceable straight edge), colored pencils, and other accouterments to let them draw what
they are trying to do in math and science. For other subjects, find stuff around the house they can use,it doesn’t need to be fancy or designed for learning. I’ve seen a student use forks, spoons, and knives to layout representations of the players and their relationships they needed to keep straight from a history lesson (it resulted in a weird place setting, but he remembered the layout and could recall information from that image).

Learning doesn’t need fancy tools, but it does need space and be set free from trying to do
everything on one screen. Find space for your child and encourage them to use it to make
distance learning work for them.