Ideas on what's working

So the school year is in full swing now.  Students in my Advanced Math class have started doing a few reassessments.  And I think that it's getting through that I want them to understand this stuff by the end of the semester, even if they don't get it the first time around.  My Math 1 class has done pretty well with it, but they're starting to ask questions and talk to a classmate when they're stuck.  I have students in both classes that have used the Livebinders pages I made over the summer that contains a lot of tutorials/extra worksheets for most of the standards that I hit in my classes.

I've also revamped my reassessment procedure (with a new application) so students have a bit more flexibility with how they decide to reassess.  My guess is that most students will do option 1 or 2, but I'm fine with them doing 3 or 4 as well (or any other idea they come up with on their own if it's a solid way to learn).  It's also nice to check out their work and then have a short discussion with them if it seems like they're still stuck on some part of that concept so they are able to get it down before they try again.  Here's the new version:

I think the bell-ringers have been good for gauging student learning and the weekly quizzes have been fantastic with letting me know how well students do with the current concept.  The only thing that I would like to change about the quizzes is to make them a bit more conceptual stuff instead of procedural.  Right now it's about a 50-50 split for Math 1, but we've been running through rational fractions/rational functions and algebra with Advanced Math so it's a bit more procedural.

However, overall, it's been a very good 6 weeks and I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the semester goes.

Math 1 Class Setup

I'm doing quite a few things differently in Math 1 this year.  First, I've gotten tables instead of individual desks.  I like that they have space to have a few things out and are able to collaborate a bit better this way.  It also makes things a little easier in terms of walking around the room.  And (I think) it actually helps students to ask each other for help before calling me over.

The major focus that I've got this year is feedback.  I want students to have a multitude of opportunities to see where their mathematical knowledge is weakest and give them a ton of chances to correct those points.  I also want them to see that they CAN do better if they put in the work.  It's a tricky business building up confidence in a subject.  I'd like to create an atmosphere where mistakes are expected as a useful part of the learning experience.

Another new thing is that I'm doing Bell-Ringers this year.  I give them about the first 5 minutes of class to work on it.  Then they switch to a different color and I project the answers to the board (with full steps shown).  I have them give themselves a bit of feedback and make corrections where necessary.  The idea behind this is that they are forced to be honest with themselves about what they do and don't know very well.  At the very least, they won't be able to hide behind a wall of ignorance unless they willfully choose to stay there.  They will know as well as I do (and perhaps better than I) exactly where they're struggling and what concepts they will need additional help with.  At that point, it's up to them to avail themselves of the multitude of ways to get help.

Additionally, I'm only assigning 2 homework sets per week.  One assigned Monday that's due Wednesday and one assigned Wednesday that's due Friday.  I understand that homework isn't the be-all and end-all of seeing how students are doing, but it's helpful for me to see how they do on their own (and unfortunately there are very few ways to do this other than at-home practice sets).  The problems are short enough that I have a large number of students completing them (which is a big step forward from last year) and they're focused enough that I can tell what misconceptions they have.  I make sure to give plenty of feedback on any homework turned in so students are able to see what happened and (hopefully) fix their mistakes.

I've also created a quiz rubric that goes on the back of every quiz I hand out.  I stole this from someone in the blogosphere, but I'm not sure who it was.  It's a pretty simple thing that can put a number to ability level.  Since I've gone to a 0-4 scale this year, the scale has 4 levels (a 0 is a blank problem, so those shouldn't ever happen).  The student then circles where they think that they are, and when I correct their quiz, I can circle where I think that they are.  This is another way to open a dialogue between the student and myself.  I'm very interested to see if they are honest with themselves about where they are in their learning or not.

I created a Livebinder for the class.  The books that the students have do not have any explanation of how to do any of the processes in math.  I think that's great, but it requires students to really pay attention to discussion and for everyone to be on the same page as often as possible.  It leaves little room for students who need more time or who've forgotten something to go back and fix their misconceptions.  This could be a resource for parents or students to help themselves if they're stuck on something.  I'm also using the worksheets posted there as a requirement if a student would like to reassess on any standard covered in class.  Before they come in, I assign them up to 3 problems from one of these sheets that they have to show full work on (and score at least "Proficient") in order to come in an reassess.  This site isn't completely done, yet, but I have put enough into it to get through the year.  I'll be adding more as we go.

Finally, I've gotten a whole lot more use out of Keynotes and whiteboards in the classroom.  Lessons are a lot more back-and-forth than they were the last couple years, which makes it more involved and more interesting for the students and makes things a lot more bearable from my end as well.  There are less behavior issues when students are participating the whole period for every period.  The Keynotes make my presentation less fluid and flexible, but they keep things rolling and make sure that I hit everything I meant to when I start the lesson.  I find this to be a more than acceptable trade-off.

A list of things that I'd still like to build into my classes over the course of this year, or over the next few years:

1. 3-Act lessons from Dan Meyer.  Especially as an introduction to a new unit or as a transition to the next unit.
2. Projects instead of tests at the end of units.  Additionally, problem-based introductions to new units to allow students the opportunity to doubt.  It's a huge deal to be able to question one's thinking, and I don't want to drill that out of anyone.
3. Incorporating estimation into the course.  A couple ways are to have students guess an answer before starting a new concept, or to use the Estimation 180 website.  Even if I only use the site a couple times a week, it could really build up a number sense in students (which is hugely important).
4. More class discussion and small group discussion about how and why math works.  And what it can do for us.  I'm not great at facilitating these types of conversations right now, but one of my goals is to get better at this.

Probabilities through Games

The probability unit starts up on Monday for some of my classes.  I'm looking forward to it because it means I get a chance to test out Yahtzee as a mechanism for finding probabilities.  I have plenty of dice, all I need to do is print out a few of the scorecards (which can just be scanned and cut apart).  The other thing that I've been debating is Kismet or Zombie Dice (the only problem being that I don't have enough of them right now for a full classroom).

I currently would like to test this out by having students play the game for a few rounds each group (this might take the whole day).  From here we'll try to figure out whether the point scores make sense for each of the tiers or if we would need to modify them based on the likelihood of getting that particular roll.

I'm also thinking that I need to do something to emphasize the difference between experimental versus theoretical probability.  With my advanced class we generally go through the Monty Hall problem (there are a lot of simulations for this out there).  I'm not as certain what I should do for a freshman level course.  I think that drawing cards may be a good way to show it, but I don't know if students would buy into it much.  The other thing I had thought of was Toss the Pigs (though that wouldn't lend itself to a comparison between experimental and theoretical).

Finally, with geometric probability, we'll be dealing with dartboards.  This will require us to go through how to find the area of sectors of circles, but that shouldn't be a problem (and honestly they'd be able to do it without this anyways).

I anticipate this being a struggle for students.  They aren't used to thinking completely for themselves.  This is partly because of the general atmosphere from K-8 and partly because I haven't gotten as project heavy with Math 1 as I wanted this year due to a couple of problems (unrelated to the curriculum).  I also think it's a worthwhile thing to do.  School shouldn't produce students who rock at trivia but can't do anything else.  I'll be posting with updates of how this goes as the unit progresses.

Nets and Forums

I worked with Math 1 to do what ultimately was a review of Surface Area for a lot of them.  First thing I did was hand out a bunch of cardboard boxes and asked them "How much cardboard was used to create this box?".  It worked out OK.  I was expecting a little bit more involvement with it, but it didn't generate the interest that some things I've tested out.  Not to say that it was bad at all, just wasn't as involved as I'd hoped it would be.  I'll probably have to change this one up a bit next time around, but I'm not completely sure what I would do differently.  I'll have to think on it a bit over the summer.  Different shaped boxes perhaps (they were all rectangular prisms this time around)?

Second thing up for the day was to hand out the standard printed net drawings of a few prisms/pyramids and have students find the amount of paper used.  Check over their work and then have them decorate/color them and put them together.  Some of them got really excited about it and really did well.  Others looked like they'd really rather just have a worksheet or something similar.  I always wonder if that's just a normal thing or if eventually I'll be able to find some way to reach those kids that don't want to do anything that even seems like work.  This was a really fun thing to do for a lot of them, though, so I think I will do it again next year (with some small modifications in terms of time and shapes).  I'm going to put these up around my room and use them when I run into a problem of a student confusing a pyramid with a prism.  Plus it'll add a little color to the place.

Thirdly, got a forum set up for my high school for a few teachers to see if people would find that interesting at all.  I figured that it would give people a bit more of a chance to see opinions written out and let everyone have a bit more of a voice than at PD time.  Not that the PD we do is a problem, but I often feel like I'm a bit crunched for time and wish that I had days to talk about the things that are brought up.  Perhaps this way we will have a way to do that.  Only time will tell whether this idea is embraced by the staff (or even part of it) or if it's something that just falls by the wayside.  Fingers crossed that it gets more discussions going about grading and tech in the classroom and more involved lessons!

Log War Cards

After the Bacon-Wrapped Workshop I figured I should probably start up a blog.  Partly so that I could connect to fellow educators more, but mostly so that I could get lessons checked over before doing them and (hopefully less often) digging through the wreckage of a failed lesson to find out what happened.

So here goes.  "Hello World".

First one I'm going to test out is actually one that I found on a couple other blogs previously.  I've had my Advanced Math class create Log War cards.  I also had them glue them to manila folders and then cut them out so that they'd be a bit more stiff and not as see-through.  Even had a student tweet about it, which was a really cool thing.  Unfortunately, the power shut off halfway through, so we didn't get a chance to play the game, but we got them all created and set aside so that we can play through it a bit on Monday.  I'm curious if it would be interesting (or motivational) to do a bit of a round-robin style tournament.  Also wondering if I have them make their own logarithms (that evaluate to a certain set of values) that they then take and use against other students may force them to think about it a bit harder as well.  Things to try next time around?  The only concern I'd have is the ones that flat out don't get it (though I guess I could have them just use my pre-made ones at that point and just have them figure out what all of mine evaluate to).