My Students' Favorite New Activity- Coloring Relay

Come March, my students have seen most of the tricks up my sleeve.  We've written ON our desks (the scandal!), we've played "Shark Tank," we've done Kagan structures, we've written on whiteboards, we've played "Mountain Climber," we've done some boring worksheets, we've made foldables, we've worked through some tough tasks, we've coached each other in "Problem Master," we've modeled with manipulatives, we've used Desmos.com to visualize data, we've done stations...you get the idea.  So, it's nice to be able to do something new in the spring that feels fresh, especially when the kids are getting antsy!

Recently, I had all of my classes do a "Pot of Gold" activity.  Every time a group got a question correct, they were able to color part of a picture.  I thought it might be a good way to get the kids out of their seats somewhat and keep everyone working.  Boy, was I right.  The kids liked the activity so much that we did it again today.  We started learning completing the square yesterday and today they had to solve a series of questions in their teams to get to color a kite coloring page I downloaded.

Kite image from PrimaryGames.com

Here's how to make it a success.  Choose a simplistic picture so that your students aren't spending lots of time coloring.  I chose a kite (see above).  Number areas on the picture so that they know where they can color after each problem.  Post the coloring sheets in the front of the room with some colored pencils and let the kids get started on the math.  Despite my insistence that it was not, in fact, a competition, they took it that way.  It was, however, largely healthy.  No one got left behind.  I told the groups that everyone had to have the correct work on their whiteboards to get credit for the problem and be able to color and to move on to the next question.  They could not raise their hand for me to check their work until everyone at the table agreed.  I said, "Don't call me over while two people on your team are finishing because you want to be done first.  You have to reach consensus."  They did an amazing job coaching each other, discussing how to simplify their answers, and helping each other find mistakes on their boards.  I only had one student who I had to speak with regarding being on task (and this was not a surprise, unfortunately).  55 out of 56, I'd call that awesome for engagement.  Even some of my reticent children were talkative because they needed their group members to agree.  In my earlier class, we literally were so engrossed in what we were doing that one of my students had to point out that it was time to go and that there were already other students in the hall.  Whoops!  No teams finished today, but they begged to finish tomorrow.  :)  

So, print off some coloring sheets, chop up that boring worksheet into task cards, and watch how quickly and accurately your students will finish their work so they can color!  

What motivates your students to work well with a team?

Mathematically yours,
Miss B
       

I need some advice, please!

Like the title says, I'm looking for some advice.  I have a new student joining my class tomorrow (or really, probably not until next Wednesday because the student had the bad timing of registering in the middle of state testing and he will have to take the tests for the next four school days).  In any case, he's the first new student I've gotten all year and with this being my first year of implementing Interactive Notebooks, I have no idea how I want to handle it.  I see the following options:

1. Give the student a composition book, have a place for a table of contents, guidelines, and rubrics, and then start his pages with whatever number we're on immediately thereafter. 

2. Give the student a notebook that I spend hours assembling with the papers that I dig out of files so that his notebook is identical to those of students who have been with me since August. 

3. Give the student a notebook with selected pages that I think would be most helpful (without actually knowing anything about this student's academic progress) and then pick up with the rest of the class.  This would probably include a few reference pages on overarching topics and the most recent things we've worked on.

If we were back in September or maybe even October, option 1 would be my first choice.  Given that we're something like 55 pages into the notebook, I cannot see how it would be practical to do #2 but when I say, "Refer to page 25 for slope-intercept form," I can't very well have this student without a resource. 

What would you do?  I would love to hear your ideas, even if you haven't gone through this particular situation before.  I know what I'm leaning toward, but I'm also more than a bit conflicted. 

Mathematically yours,
Miss B

My idea of Professional Development

Earlier tonight, I answered a series of tweets by @jybuell concerning teachers' content knowledge.  It got me thinking about the direction professional development needs to take.  At my own school, I see a range of comfort levels from teachers when it comes to the new content in their curriculum.  I'm a pretty savvy mathematician and end up fielding a lot of content questions from colleagues, but even that didn't prepare me for tape diagrams and double number lines; someone had to teach me how to use them.  Then there's this picture that has been bouncing around Facebook for the past few days.  Who among us didn't need a few moments to decipher the thought process taking place at the bottom of the page?  All of this is to say that most if not all teachers need some support with content knowledge as we adopt Common Core.  That support may be in grasping the "deep conceptual understanding" we want our students to have or it may be in understanding the finer points of new methods were asked to use to get our students to that understanding. 

Where does that leave us?  With a precious few inservice days built into the calendars and plenty of initiatives around every corner, we need to have professional development (now "professional learning," according to some) that addresses the needs of the individual teachers.  As teachers, we are asked to differentiate lessons for our students and I think it's time that administration look at doing the same thing for their teachers. 

One thing I would love to see happen is local conferences.  My idea is relatively simple: have each teacher work individually or in a small group of not more than three to select something to present to other teachers.  It could be anything from a method of classroom management, strategies for cooperative learning, web-based resources useful in a variety of disciplines, interactive notebooks, information gleaned from a conference or class, or interesting math tasks.  Whatever it is, teachers would be asked to plan and deliver one session on an inservice day and to attend other sessions of their choice given that day.  In larger districts, several schools could combine at one location to offer more sessions.  My school pretty much always has the same few people present inservice and in the past three years, it's always been about Common Core, PARCC, or some combination of those two things.  I know there are people now implementing aspects of Common Core that are worthy of being shared and I would like to learn from them.  In many ways, I think a local conference would be more practical than a national or regional conference.  I attended NCTM regional in the fall and I realized that so many things were not useful to me- either they didn't apply to my population (hello, no technology at home), were things that my district had done previously and moved away from because we found them ineffective, or were just sales pitches disguised as sessions.  One notable exception: @Mathalicious.  I totally need to spend my entire curriculum budget on that next year.  Second runner up: Dinah Zike's Foldables.  Yes, a sales pitch, but my kids love the books I learned to make and I didn't spend a cent on the books. 

I realize my idea involves lots of logistics and teacher buy-in but I think it would be a valuable way to share best practices.  As I say frequently, "One day when I run the world..."

In what ways should professional development change to make it more effective for you?

Mathematically yours,
Miss B

When snow days and state testing collide...

This year we've had ten snow days.  That's an awful lot more than normal and I think it might be a record for my lifetime, including when I was in school.  Unfortunately, they've been scattered throughout the past two months, so we have had a very hard time getting into any sort of routine since Christmas break ended nearly two months ago.  Yesterday and today were snow days and they've already announced a delay for tomorrow.  The biggest problem with that is that we were slated to start our six days of reading and math testing today so now our schedule will be even stranger than before.  I just keep trying to roll with the punches, but it's getting harder and harder to believe I'll have time to finish my curriculum if things keep going this way.

I'm going to see just two of my classes for 45 minutes each tomorrow (when we usually have 90 minutes), so I wanted something light and active for my poor kids who will have spent the morning taking a 99-minute math test and then have to come back to me for even more math!

Enter the Pot of Gold activity developed by KFouss.  I used her completing the square version last school year and it was a hit.  I made a small change by including some coloring.  Is it necessary?  Absolutely not.  Will it help my kids have some fun and be motivated after testing?  I think so.  It might also breed a little competition among the groups when they see certain groups making faster progress.

The files are below.  If you don't have the font KG Begin Again, go download it now.  I'm pretty sure these files will be formatted terribly without that font. 

First up, systems:

Next, factoring polynomials:

How do you keep kids working when it's testing season?

Mathematically yours,
Miss B

Tic Tac Times

My Algebra classes are learning to factor quadratics right now.  I enjoy factoring, but I'm a nerdy math teacher.  My students are going to need to be adept at factoring to tackle more complex problems in higher math classes, so I need to get a good deal of quality practice in for them this year.

We did a really successful exploration with Algebra tiles this week.  I was able to build on prior knowledge from multiplying polynomials recently when we first used Algebra tiles.  The students worked in groups of four to build models and analyze their work, building up to the observation that the factors of a trinomial with leading coefficient a=1 (ax^2 + bx + c) can be written using the numbers that add to b and multiply to c.  If you use this activity, you'll find that students get held up at letter F because they first have to use a zero pair in that question.  They will also struggle with G unless they again use zero pairs.  Only about 10-20% of my students were able to find the relationship between b, c, and the factors without some additional scaffolded questioning from me.  I asked them to go back to the standard form and the factors for each question and look for a pattern.  Example C is especially useful for getting students to see the pattern.

You can download the Algebra tiles exploration here.  It's meant to be attached to an interactive notebook when folded in half; that's why there's a blank area. 

The exploration took three days, about 30 minutes per day, perhaps less on the final day.  At the conclusion, we wrote down some extra examples of factoring quadratics with a leading coefficient of 1.  Then, I did a scavenger hunt around the classroom.  It's not typed up but I might work on that over the weekend if anyone is interested in it.  Note to self and others: make sure you shuffle the cards really well.  I shuffled them back to their original places in some bizarre mathematical anomaly and my students just ended up going in a circle à la stations.  Ugh.  I only heard a few (dozen) complaints from the kids about my goof. 

Today, everyone had finished the tiles and the stations but I wanted to incorporate some fun practice, especially because one class had gotten ahead of the other and I wanted to even things back out.  Does anyone else do this?  I can't stand being 20 minutes apart from one section to the other, so I sometimes build in an activity that I know I can cut from the class that's behind.  It helps me stay sane to have my classes doing the same lessons.  I went to an activity that I used last year and it was well received by the kids. 

Tic Tac Times is a game that nearly tricks kids into factoring.  I learned my lesson from last year and taught students the winning strategy before they started.  I showed them what would happen if I just randomly chose two factors (I'd end up somewhere random and possibly far away from my other squares) compared with how I could use factoring to select the factors that matched a box I wanted to claim.  Most kids caught on quickly.  One girl was ecstatic, "I actually did something right!" when she beat her partner in just a few moves.  Another team decided to see if they could fill the board before either of them won.  I told them that was fine; they would be doing more math.  Only one pair out of 48 students asked, "What should we do when someone wins?" because everyone else just started right into a second round.   I also explained the strategy of occupying a factor that your opponent needs to keep them from winning.  Again, in order to do that, the student must factor squares that his opponent might want to mark. 

It was a great day and I finished class with an exit pass of three questions.  48 of my 56 Algebra students were in school today.  Of them, the scores were:
3/3 = 44 students
2.5/3= 2 students (one had a sign error, the other wrote a 3 instead of a 2 for no apparent reason; oddly two of my most solid performers)
2/3 = 1 student (thought one problem couldn't be factored when it could)
0/3 = 1 student (wrote no answers, only the questions; we're working on it)

How do you introduce factoring?

Mathematically yours,
Miss B

Time savers for the busy teacher!

Let's face it- there simply is not enough time in the day of a typical teacher.  Inspired by Sarah's post at Math = Love,  I decided to write my own tips for saving time.  Most of these tips save time for me and for my students. 

My biggest time-saver is my materials tubs.  They're large shower caddies from Walmart that I loaded up with everything my kids ever need to use.  Each group of 4 has a tub that is stored on a shelf in my classroom.  I don't have 28 children traipsing across the room to get scissors or colored pencils or dry erase markers every time we use them nor do I have to pass them out and collect them myself.  Just 7 kids need to move to get a tub with everything their group could need.  I have almost no problem at all with things being left out on desks between classes, though sometimes materials get misplaced in the wrong tub and have to be redistributed.  (This happens when an eager child replaces his group's tub before his group mate has put away her scissors.  When she goes to return them, she places hers in the wrong tub).  You can see my post here where I describe them in depth.

Another favorite time saver is like Sarah's first tip.  I bought some plastic drawers like these: http://www.sterilite.com/SelectProduct.html?id=329&ProductCategory=186&section=1.  In one, I keep three kinds of frequently-used graph paper.  In the other, I keep notebook paper and copy paper.  I don't have to remember where I filed my graph paper or copy it each time I'm going to use it.  I simply copy several hundred sheets at a time and reload the drawers when they get low.  My students know where the papers are stored and can help themselves.  This is especially nice when a student decides he wants graph paper and I'm helping another student clear across the classroom- there's no need for interruption.  I have another bank of these drawers in which I store my colored copy paper.  That helps me see which colors I can choose from and which I might need to restock.

I just graded several Interactive Notebooks last night and I was reminded how easy it was to do so thanks to the rubrics I have glued into the notebook.   Having them glued in means I don't have to copy more papers, write students' names on the rubrics, or separately pass them back to students and have the students store them.  I just open the notebook, circle the points earned, record the score, and close the notebook.  How simple!  The best part is that the rubrics are there all year so the students can look back and see how they've been doing throughout the year.  I can also follow up to see that improvements were made following the most recent notebook check without digging through records. 

Missing work can be another huge time-suck. Don't forget the dreaded student question, "I was absent yesterday.  Did I miss anything?"  These organizers have made my life so much easier than before!  You could use any kind of organizer to accomplish this; I've seen file folders and letter trays also be used effectively.  I've combined this set of organizers with a "While You Were Out" slip that can quickly communicate to a student what was missed.  I haven't gotten students to fill them out as I originally planned; I find I can usually fill these out in a minute or less while students are working on something independently.  I keep a basket of them along with a box of paper clips just next to the hanging organizers.

Warm-up folders (I'll get to talk more about this at TMC2014!!!) are a small time saver, but an important one.  In my school, we give individual grades on warm-ups every day.  To quickly pass out and collect warm-ups, each student is assigned to one of about 5 file folders for that class period.  The warm up papers are stored there so the child can pick up his paper from the folder at the beginning of the class and return it there when it is complete.  This is much faster than each child shuffling through a stack of 28 papers or having someone pass them out at the start of class.  I go through each folder and grade the papers every afternoon.

Gosh, there are probably more great time savers I could share but I'm off to be productive around the house on this snow day.

How do you save time in your classroom?

Mathematically yours,
Miss B

P.S.- If you haven't gone to read Sarah's post at Math = Love yet, please do since she inspired this post! 

January Recap

It's hard to believe that we're already nearly at the end of January.  This has been a short teaching month.  We returned from Christmas break on the 6th.  By the middle of the month, we were dealing with delays due to ice or fog.  The first term ended on the 17th and we were out of school all of last week due to the MLK holiday, teacher inservice (from which we were excused to leave early) and three snow days.  Yesterday, we had a delay because the roads were still a mess and it looks like we might have another bit of snow tonight that threatens to interrupt tomorrow.  All of these interruptions have been a bit of a nuisance.  I want to get back into routine and it's just not happening! 

Good news: I'm definitely going to Twitter Math Camp 2014.  Now, I just have to get my travel plans in order.  I'm so excited to meet face-to-face with virtual friends! 

Other good news: A student who has been giving me trouble lately with behavior and work ethic voluntarily came for extra help today and we had a good discussion.  I'm curious to see if things change for the better in the coming days. 

Good news part three: I'm making good progress on my NBCT portfolio.