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Taking Notes Can Be Fun!

I found the Global Math Department about a year ago. I don't even remember how I happened upon it, but I remember a sense of awe that math teachers from all over could conduct meetings and share ideas online. I guess I never even thought about doing that, but I am sure glad that someone did!

I don't get to participate very often just because most every minute of my day is taken up with planning for school and keeping up with my family! When I do get to participate or watch an archived presentation I always come away with some great ideas.

The last one I watched was on Interactive Math Notebooks and it completely changed the way I thought about teaching. I was so intrigued by the idea that I spent all summer researching ideas for how to set them up and how to implement them in my math classes.

If you aren't familiar with interactive notebooks they are composition books that students turn into their own textbooks by creating foldables to organize notes and taking time to reflect on their math connections. My students love to use their colored pencils and highlighters to color code examples and create notes that are fun to review.

I'm not an expert yet, by any means, and some of my students certainly haven't fully grasped the concept of how they can fully utilize them, but we are learning as we go and I keep finding great things to add to them. Check out Mrs. Hester's Classroom blog where she shares tons of foldable ideas. She's my go to resource for new notebook entries! There are also tons of ideas on Pinterest.

I am hoping to keep these notebooks going and to streamline the process so that I can give my students the opportunity to have a great resource at their fingertips. Maybe I will even document the process here and share some of my students' work :)

#MTBoS Mission 3: Estimation 180

THANK YOU, #MTBoS, for reminding me of the awesome Estimation 180 site! I found it over the summer and had it marked in my favorites, but haven't gotten around to using it with my students. This will be my number one mission in the next few weeks.

Estimation is such an important skill, and yet, I don't practice it enough with my students. I encourage them to estimate when operating with decimals...so they know where to put the decimal in their answers...and to estimate when solving all sorts of problems...so they can check the reasonableness of their answers, but they just don't have a great handle on it. Most of the time if I ask for an estimation, they just work the problem to find an exact answer and then round to the nearest 10 or something. All backwards.

What they really need is real life estimation. That is what Estimation 180 is all about. While I do have some technological challenges for using this in my classroom, I am sure I can overcome them pretty easily with just a little effort.

So, how would I use Estimation180 in my classroom? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is to use it as a warm-up exercise. This would be a great first step, so I can model the thought process for my students. Once they get the hang of estimation, how the site works and what the goal is, I might put a link to a specific exercise on the class wiki (or embed a series there) and ask them to try it out and blog about their thoughts and estimates.

If I can keep this going, I am sure that I will eventually have a few students who want to try it out for themselves, so I'd help them brainstorm ideas and set up photo shoots to create their own. Of course, that would be followed by presenting the student-made estimation challenges to classmates, or even to the younger students down the hall. What a great way for my outliers to feel a part of the school...send them to an elementary class to teach about estimation with their very own creation!

Now, I'm on a roll...school wide contest to create new ones? Weekly estimation activities displayed in the hallways with a place for students (and adults) to submit their estimates? slips of paper in a jar? stickers on a graph (you know, like that commercial)? student run exit polls?

I think I'm getting in over my head a bit here.

First step, use as a warm-up tomorrow morning. We will see where it goes from there :)

**Estimation 180 update! I did use Day 1 as a warm-up with my grade 6 & 7 classes. They did a great job estimating the height of Mr. Stadel. With 7th, I also went to Day 2 without revealing the Day1 answer and they estimated the height of Mrs. Stadel. The next day I revealed his true height and asked for adjustments to her height. About half the class changed their estimates and were able to articulate why they decided to make the change. All of their new changes made sense and they were excited to see how close they were to the real values.

Gonna try to keep this going!

Creating Collaborators Part 1: Celebrate Mistakes

Thanks, again, to Kevin Olson of Blogstorm for the idea for this series.  He asked if I had any strategies or systems for getting students to share ideas and critique each others work in response to my Patterns, Patterns Everywhere post for the #MTBoS challenge.  The prequel provides a bit of background about how I ended up in middle school and the beginning of my journey toward facilitator instead of teacher.  This post talks about how I get my students talking about math.

As I said in the prequel, I sometimes get to look out at my classroom and see students collaborating, discussing ideas, correcting misconceptions and truly engaged in the material.  At these moments I feel like the best teacher in the world!

I don't want to misrepresent my classroom.  These moments do not happen every class or every day. Sometimes they don't even happen once in a week, but they do happen.   

So, how do I get my students to collaborate like this?  

The first step is getting students comfortable with the idea of sharing.  Since most middle schoolers have an intense fear of being wrong, this is no easy feat.

Starting in the 6th grade I try to get them talking.  Since most of their math classes up to this point have been quiet and independent work, most of them really don't know what to do.  Usually, they try to talk about whatever sport is in season or some crazy video game while I am fussing at them for not talking about the math.  

I really have to monitor them a lot during partner talks about math assignments and about open ended problems.  Keep them on task and talking about math instead of the millions of other topics they would rather think about.  

I ask them to partner up and discuss EVERY day.  Even if it's only talking about last night's practice for two minutes.

I also model what I want them to say and do during whole class discussions about numbers, start-ups or open ended problems and during lessons.  I make sure that I use my "math words," like saying "four and five tenths" instead of "four point five."  I ask questions out loud that I am thinking in my head and I draw models and write little notes to myself all over my white boards.  I let them catch me making mistakes.

Most importantly, I challenge their ideas and their solutions in a constructive and non-judgmental way.  And, I insist that they tell me those ideas even when they think they are wrong.  Every day, we talk and talk about what they tried and what didn't work.  They try to explain to each other why those ideas didn't work and I fill in the gaps when those explanations are complete or correct.

I tell them every day that I want them to make mistakes.  And I celebrate my students when they share what didn't work.  Why?  Making errors means they are trying.  Sharing mistakes means they are contributing to the learning of themselves and others.  They are getting over their fear of being wrong.  

Slowly but surely, those squirrelly 11 and 12 year olds begin to come around.  

Most of the time, I don't really see 6th graders collaborating effectively on their own.  Even toward the end of the year.  I think they just aren't developmentally ready yet.  But, they do start to get the idea and, with a little bit of direction from me, they get used to talking in math class.  About math.

I am lucky in that I have the unique opportunity of teaching my students for all three years of middle school. 

What I have noticed over the past couple of years is that, if I can stay the course, these same students grow into 8th graders that can effectively communicate their mathematical ideas, work together to solve complicated problems and learn from each other's mistakes.  They aren't afraid to try and they are able to prove each other wrong and convince others they are right.

Are all my 8th graders able to do this?  Of course not.  But all of them are more participatory than they were as 6th graders and I am perfectly fine with baby steps in the right direction.

I really think that this is the thing I am most proud of in my teaching.  Creating an environment in my classroom where my students feel safe enough to be wrong and confident enough to try.  They may not master all the math, but they know it's okay to make mistakes and it's important to work together.

Thanks for visiting!

Twitterpated

So, the second #MTBoS mission is all about Twitter.  After reading and hearing about tweeting this and tweeting that for a while, a couple of years ago I decided to give it a try.

Of course, I didn't really get it.  It seemed so silly to me that people would tell the world what they were doing every minute of every day.  I didn't have a smart phone (still don't...gasp!) and I didn't really have time to log onto my computer several times a day and tweet about what I had for dinner or what crazy thing some celebrity was doing.

Then, there was the whole "Nobody cares what I have to say" mentality, too.  (That's also why it took me so long to start blogging and why I quit blogging after only a couple of posts last year.)

Then, low and behold, I discovered that I can chat with other people who want to talk about the things I want to talk about.  Those #hashtag thingys really changed my perspective.  I started searching for all sorts of things and found #mathchat, #mschat, #edchat, just to name a few.  After my first #mathchat, I was completely and totally 

TWITTERPATED.

Of course, even though I loved the possibility of being able to connect with other educators out there who are trying to do the same things I am, my schedule got the best of me and I never seemed to be able to make it to those chats.  So, I kind of stalked Twitter from time to time, taking advantage of other Tweeps posted resources and ideas.

Now, a couple years later, I've decided that it's time to give back and that I truly NEED Twitter.  As the ONLY math teacher in my middle school...yes, we are very small...it is difficult to feel like I am up to speed when there is nobody else for me to bounce ideas off of or get resources from.  Being the entire math department has its perks (I get to do things my way every day and there are never any disagreements at our meetings!) but being able to connect with others just about math isn't one of them.  

And that is an important piece to growing as an educator.  Collaborating and sharing resources with others who do what you do.

So thanks to #MTBoS, I am now focusing a little more energy on connecting with others via Twitter.  And, in the past few days I've already made some #smallworld discoveries.  It's time for me to stop lurking and start sharing.

So follow me @tarheelmommy95 if you want.  Hopefully, a tweet or two of mine will be just what you are looking for.

Thanks for visiting!

Creating Collaborators: The Prequel

Thanks to Kevin Olson of Blogstorm for the idea for this series.  He asked if I had any strategies or systems for getting students to share ideas and critique each others work in response to my Patterns, Patterns Everywhere post for the #MTBoS challenge.  This first post provides a bit of background about how I ended up in middle school and the beginning of my journey toward facilitator instead of teacher.

I will say that when I look out over my classroom, I sometimes think my students don't really need me.  I step back and see groups of students discussing how they would approach a problem or explaining why the method they first tried didn't work.  When it's time for class to end, I often have to run students out of the room because they want to keep working.  I wonder how I got so lucky.

I know you will believe me when I say it didn't start out this way.

Having a K-6 degree with a math concentration, middle school was the last place I ever thought I would be. However, a series of unforseen events landed me right here...smack dab in the middle school of my super small K-8 charter school.  A "promotion" from first grade of all places.  This is my seventh year here and I can honestly say that after my leap of faith to the world of middle school I have never looked back.

That first year I started with a brand new textbook series with some great bells and whistles and that "old school" mentatlity of math teaching...I will show you how to do it, watch you do it a few times and then give you a bajillion problems to practice for homework.  If you do your homework, you will be fine.  If you don't, you won't understand the math.  Tomorrow, we will move on to the next thing on the list.  There will be a chapter test next week.

It didn't take me long to realize that it doesn't work that way.  

Not to mention that I was literally killing myself trying to grade 60 papers every night.  And that doesn't count the "extra" papers that I gave those fast finishers to do so they wouldn't be sitting around causing trouble.

It also didn't take me long to realize that teaching a class of 7th graders, for example, as a whole group doesn't work so well either.  They are such goobers.  They just can't help it.  In spite of my low-tech everyone has a whiteboard and marker to show me your anwers technique, every day just left me feeling like a disaster.  I couldn't keep the strugglers up to speed and keep the fast ones challenged and busy.

Drawing from my elementary background, I decided to give small groups and centers (or learning stations to make it sound more grown up) a try.  Let's just say that this worked marginally well, at best.  Great idea on paper, but as it turns out, you have to train kids to work independently.  Who knew?  While I felt that I was reaching more students, I still spent quite a bit of time barking at the "independent workers" trying to keep them on task.

So, once again reaching back to my elementary tool box, I decided to try weekly contracts.  Now when I am working with a group, the other students have specific activities and tasks to choose from.  Complete the contract each week and you will learn the math.  Goof off and you'll end up in detention.  The contracts even had the standards and "I Can" statements right on them!  I thought I was so smart and that this would actually work.

You know, they just don't teach you what works and what doesn't work in college.

This post is getting rather long, so I will end by saying that at about this point I started to notice that my students were not persistent problem solvers.  In fact, they didn't seem to really think much at all and would often take one look at a problem and decide they were never going to solve it.  So they quit before they even began.  This bothered me to no end and I started obsessing about how I could turn them into real problem solvers.  Not just for math class, but for life.

As one who is always up for a challenge, I decided to take this one head on!

To be continued...

Patterns, Patterns Everywhere!

This week's #MTBoS mission is to write about a favorite open ended problem that I use in my math class.  I have thought about his idea for a few days and while I really don't have one favorite problem, I decided that I would write about a favorite type of problem....finding and expressing patterns.

One thing I love to do is give my middle school students a seemingly simple pattern, like this,

and then ask a variety of questions.  Sometimes, I let my students ask the questions instead.

I might begin with the obvious and build in complexity:

• How many squares in the next figure? the 10th?
• What is the area of the next figure? the 10th?
• What is the perimeter of the next figure? the 10th?
• If each unit square is 2 feet long (or 5 feet or 1/2 foot) what is the area/ perimeter of the next figure?

By the time I have exhausted the possiblities for whichever line of questioning I focused on I am ready to lay the big question on them...

• What if I asked you to find the 100th figure?

Since the main strategy for most of my students involves counting, they usually have to pick their chins off the floor at this point because they do not want to continue their data tables all the way to 100 or 1000 or 752 or whatever crazy big number I decide to throw at them.  So, it's back to the drawing board to design a new strategy and look for new relationships in the data.  

It usually doesn't take very long for a few to start seeing the big picture and trying to explain to others in their groups what kinds of patterns they discovered.  Eventually, we end up with a few different relationships that all come out to the same answer and, depending on which grade level I have at the time, I either lead them to an appropriate equation or ask them to translate their relationships into equations that anyone can use to find any of the figures.

I am embarassed to say that the first time I tried this "What about the 100th?" was kind of by accident.  I needed an extension for a group of quick finishers.  I knew I didn't want to find something else for them to do, and I was trying to create a culture of persistent problem solving, so the question just kind of popped into my head and I ran with it.  Not only were they able to generalize a model, but they had fun doing it.

Now, I try to give my students a similar type of problem pretty often.  We don't always spend a lot of class time on it, but they are practicing a pretty important skill while having fun.

And now, for a little extra...

I know we are only supposed to write about one of the prompts this week, but I really want to take a moment to share what I love about my classroom, too.  I teach at a K-8 charter school with one class per grade level...our max enrollment is 180 and in the middle school we have no more than 60 students. 

Because of our smallness, I have the unique experience of teaching my students for their entire middle school careers.  That's right, folks.  When I get those little guys as 6th graders, I get to keep them until they go to high school!  That means that I really get to know my students as math learners and as people.  I get to watch them grow (many times from Kindergarten all the way through) into independent thinkers who are ready to tackle the world.

I am so proud of our little school that really feels more like a family than a school.  I get to leave my house each day and go to a place that feels more like home than work and I get to change kids attitudes toward math while I'm there.  

I know it made this post too long, but I just had to share that extra little tidbit!

Thanks for visiting!