Tag: challenge

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Wins

We have definitely, totally, absolutely reached that time of year. The new-year energy has worn off, we’re all a little tired, feeling a little behind, maybe a little overwhelmed, and just grateful that we get a short break next week.

It’s real. I’ve given out chocolate, and tissues, and lots of deep breaths lately.

And, I am very aware of the class with the terrible attendance, and the students who struggle, and all of the things on the calendar that add stress, and all of the resources that I wish we had but we don’t.

 

And, yet, the little wins.

 

They’re there too, when I remember to breath and notice.

A few weeks ago, we did this open middle challenge.  My students were so into it, they didn’t want to move on when I told them they could. And, my college student volunteer took it home to see if she could get exactly one.

And in another class, we tried these order of operations riddles (freebie!) and one group was so into getting every. last. one. that they argued hard against showing the answer key at the end of the class. They got it, averting their eyes and solving it with seconds to spare.

I’m grateful for the people who put creative and engaging teaching out there. But, my favorite wins are just my students, working  and learning.

I showed my (struggling) middle level class a preview of Algebra equation solving when we were finding the missing side in area. Most of them thought I was nuts to do so much extra writing when they could just divide, get an answer and move on. But one student, who sits in the back and struggles with math and rarely says much, kinda liked it. And when she was done with the first task, took on some simple equations (? + 7 = 15), and then some less simple equations, and by the end of the two hour class was slowly solving two step equations (2x+6=20)

 We had one of those nights early on, where enough of the class had to take an assessment that I couldn’t do anything new. It was early, but I gave the few left in class some practice HiSET tests to look at. Mostly they looked at them, their eyes got wide, and they threw up their hands. I moved on (I’ve never seen such enthusiastic agreement to switching to word problems) But one student stuck with it. He doesn’t know more of the math, he’s just more able to sit with it. He and a tutor worked that practice test for two hours, and then for homework, and then when he had free time in another class.  A few weeks ago, he asked for another test.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Challenge (aka Task) Cards

Challenge

A couple of my favorite lessons, recently, have been basically amp’ed up task cards.

I call them “challenges”, because it sounds more motivating than tasks, and make each challenge rather bigger than some of the (often-elementary-grades) card sets I see online.  Last night, 7 cards took my fastest group about an hour.  

I love how easy it makes differentiation, and how many different kinds of thinking we can get in one class.

For a lesson like this, where the cards are the class, I’m sequencing them so I can gradually increase the challenge and cover the content in an order that makes sense.

For a couple of topics, we’ve learned a topic without any stand and lecture moments, just cards and small groups and conversations when questions come up. (To be fair, I’m strategic about these topics – area of a quadrilateral is pretty gentle learning curve, I don’t know that I’d try that with introducing algebraic equations)

So, while I’m loving cards, I pulled together a few of my favorite stems (and a few examples)

  • Read and summarize

  • Look at a (completed) example problem, make observations about how it was solved

  • Complete guided notes  (I’ll break format to give them a card with the instructions + a copy of the notes to keep)

  • Vocab: matching words and definitions, or a card pointing to a quizlet set.vocab
  • Put the steps in order and/or match a description of a step to its mathematical representation

steps

  • Solve a few problems (usually a few cards in a class set with different kinds of problems) plus or minus a reflection question.

  • A mini-sort or search 

sort

 

  • How is ___ similar or different from ___ ?

  • Guess and googleguess google

 

  • A challenge to preview the next lesson

 

 

My sequencing mostly follows a pretty familiar pattern: some input-y cards (reading, examples etc.) some supported practice (sorting steps etc.), independent practice, then challenges or create your own. 

One of my secret-but-not-really objectives is that they’re learning skills for independent learning. Being able to look at and make sense of an example problem, or a paragraph of math book, or to make a guess and then check it, will serve them well when they get to college math homework.  

And, challenge cards do a good job of demonstrating that they can learn something without me standing at the board with the answers. (My adults, having gone through mostly-not-successful school already often have pretty traditional ideas about what math class should look like)

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Challenges

It’s May.

There’s a month left of school. We just went through a round of testing. And we’re all a little fried.

And so, I was sitting in my office a few classes ago, with a topic (functions),  no particular lesson plan inspiration, and a textbook with a nice series of activities that checked all the boxes (mixed question/task types, at the right level, moving smoothly up Blooms…) I’ll be honest,  “Class, please complete the exercises on pages __ to ___” was a tempting plan.

Except

It’s May. The students are fried, they’ve worked hard all year and focusing on a textbook for a big chunk of class now was just not going to work.  They’re good, they’d try, but who could blame them for losing interest?

But was a nice series of activities, and I’m fried enough myself that I didn’t want to waste a perfectly good set of learning materials.

 

Solution: Envelopes.  Scissors. Some re-framing.

 

I made copies and started cutting and sorting. Those vocab words? A tiny matching activity, in an envelope. A big #1 on the front.  That exercise identifying functions? Cut apart and stuck in an envelope, it’s a card sort. With a big #2 on the front. That other exercise? I just stuck it in an envelope. Add a graph, ask for a sentence, envelope, envelope.

With a few additions and some cutting and editing, I soon had a few copies each of six enveloped tasks. I called them challenges and handed out the envelopes with that big #1 on the front. I told my students when they had completed the first challenge, they could exchange it for #2.

And it worked.

The mystery of the envelopes, the challenge, the sense of accomplishment and progress as they exchanged one envelope for the next added enough interest that they worked hard and stayed engaged the whole class.

In May.

When we’re all fried.   (Did I mention that fact?)

 

I love that they worked hard and learned.

But, I also love that I got a new tool in my teacher-kit.

Cut it up, put it in envelopes, set up a challenge – that’s a transferable skill-set for the next time I’m contemplating “please complete the exercises on page…”