Tag: functions

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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…”

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Wins And Losses

It’s more fun to talk about the wins, but we learn so much from the losses (if we take the time to look). Wins and Losses is a chance for me to reflect on one of each.

(Also, I could use a better series title, stay tuned for updates or suggestions)

 

Loss:  Group Dynamics

I have one class with a particularly challenging mix of personalities. Some super quiet, some rather oblivious to social cues about volume and sharing air time, and a wide range of maturity, mental health, math skills, personalities and opinions about school. Individually, they all have plenty of things going for them, but it’s not a group that’s gelled.

After a frustrating class where more of my energy when to classroom management than to teaching, I decided to break it up. Small groups, spread far enough apart that they couldn’t distract each other, each with one of my generous classroom volunteers facilitating.

I gave them a beautiful activity, from a thoughtful resource, setting up functions by exploring the calories burned in different activities. Last time I used this, I had one student skipping soda and climbing the stairs by the end of class.

This time, I had, instead of one classroom full of conflicting dynamics, two. I was short a volunteer, so larger groups than planned, and had designed the groups to spread out the different management problems. In the process, I got groups with vastly different math skills, and no interest in working together. The quick ones were bored, the slow workers were lost, and I got “Is this on the test?” instead of “I’m taking the stairs”

 

Take away: Design for learning first, then dynamics. If I were to do it again, I might do more homogeneous groups and give chocolate/many thanks/lots of support to the volunteers working with the more challenging ones.    

 

Win: Fractions

I don’t know about those of you teaching K12, but in ABE, fractions are a black hole filled with quick sand (or some other appropriately sticky metaphor). They’re counterintuitive, take for-EVER, set off students’ math anxiety, and then rarely appear on the HiSET.

*grumble*

But last week, my students figured out how to add fractions, with no explicit instruction on my part.

I gave them fraction circles, and visuals, and partners and said “observe, try it and report back”.  And they reported back a neat summary of adding fractions, and that it was easy. I typed up their observations, gave everyone a copy and moved on to mixed numbers.

Take away:  Trust them. With the right supports, and the right sized step (we saved uncommon denominators for the next class) they can do it.