Tag: lesson plan

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Math about {Anything} Lessons

My favorite recipes, aren’t really recipes. Or at least, they’re not fixed recipes, they’re a format you can riff on. Sometimes I make that pasta with broccoli and lemon and chickpeas; and sometimes the broccoli is kale, or spinach. And sometimes the lemon is Parmesan, or sun-dried tomatoes, or left out and the chickpeas are veggie sausage…. You know those recipes, right?

Some of my favorite math lessons are what I call “math about learning.” I love them because I love learning, and love talking about learning. But, really, they’re that pasta recipe. I use broccoli and learning, but you could swap in whatever you and/or your students love.

The basic idea is to conduct a mini-survey about SOMETHING and analyze your data.

Why I love these lessons

It shows students math as a useful tool for understanding the real world. Especially if they’re invested in the topic or questions.

I love talking about learning, so I do. But, for the multi-subject ABE teachers who are passionate about something other than math, it lets them connect that passion to the classroom.

Math about ___ Lesson Planner. Preview Only.

Here’s the recipe:

(Here’s a 2-page Google Doc to help you plan your lesson)

Introduce your topic: Share your content, have a discussion, get your students interested in the thing, whatever your thing is.

I do learning. You do you. Science, or music, or sneakers, or social issues, or sports, or dogs, or whatever your thing is.

Write some survey questions (or get your students to write them with you) and collect some data. A show of hands, a secret ballot, peer interviews, standing in corners of the room. Take your pick, or make your own.

Pro tip: Spectrum or rating questions translate nicely to number lines (perhaps with decimals or fractions or signed numbers)

Analyze your data. Give your students a task and math skill: Find the percent of the class who said ____; make a bar graph of responses to question __; calculate the median rating of ___.

In short, simple stats are your friend. Depending on how you structure your questions and your task, this can be decimals, fractions, percents (and/or converting between them), ratios/proportions, signed numbers, mean/median/mode, charts, tables, graphs (or work your graphs right and you can fit some geometry in) or probably other things I haven’t thought about yet.

Extend, maybe.

Make a display of your data, or write a ‘statistical analysis’ and feel fancy (and get some great learning/ELA connections).

Connect it to statistics. Talk about samples, and population, and bias. Can we make predictions based on our data about the school/town/state?

( PS. This post was inspired by a workshop I planned for the Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Education Network Conference in April.

NETWORK has been cancelled for public health reasons. I respect the decision, wish everyone good health… and am going to be offering a digital version. )

Sign up to receive information about a digital workshop from mathacognitive: “The Struggle is Real: Self Care and Balance

PPS. I don’t believe in math people and non math people. I do believe in helping all teachers — including multi-subject ABE teachers who don’t love math (yet!) — achieve.

Here’s the workshop description: Anyone can learn math … but for teachers who did not have positive math education experiences themselves, teaching math can be stressful. Still, it’s part of the job for many multi-subject adult educators. We’ll explore some of the research on math and learning and discuss how people who don’t identify with math can use their unique strengths to help their students succeed

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Lesson Sketch: Like Term-ominoes

Last year, when I was looking for creative ideas to teach like terms to my adult learners, I made up Like Termominoes. And I got to class ready to unveil them to a class full of excited students … and then all the things happened and they didn’t exactly get a triumphal unveiling.


So, this year, the unit rolled around again and I got a second chance. (I love a second chance)

I still have a tiny class (facing a different set of all things) but! we learned like terms, with some furrowed brows and some tired brains, but learned it and students walked out feeling triumphant (and their triumph matters so much more than my dominoes’)

a picture of dominoes with text. math activity "like term-ominoes" Combiining like terms + dominoes = fun and learning. Small group or center activitiy. 6.ee.as, 7.ee.a.1, 8.ee.c.7b
A fun teaching/lesson plan idea for combining like terms

Lesson Sketch: Combining Like Terms

The thinking:

For my adult learners, one of the key tasks in algebra is just getting comfortable with how it’s written. Notation, variables, a whole suite of new symbols. So we’re focusing hard on the terms, here, and less on any calculation.

The sequence:


The Tweaks:

A house (classroom?) rule clarification that you can match to any place on the dominoes on the table, not just the ends of the arrangements (with appreciation for the students who wanted to show off their double match)

I took the scoring out. My original plan included a score sheet, where points were awarded based on the coefficient of the combined term. I decided it was one more moving piece than I wanted, and skipped it.

(And, while I was at it, I updated the version on TPT to include the new recording sheet)

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Lesson Sketch: Reading Algebra (Card Sort + Critical Thinking)

Topic: Reading Algebra (CCRS: A.SSE.1a)

Why:

Half of the battle with algebra (well, some significant fraction of the battle anyways, because half is always anxiety and focus and  grit and all the metacognitive things) is just reading algebra. The variables, the changes in notation and conventions, it looks so unfamiliar to new learners. And for those inclined to doubt their math abilities, a string of letters and a lack of familiar symbols is often a trigger to shut down.

So, a lesson to get used it to before we try to do anything with it.

What:

  1. A warm up: Sal Kahn answers a darn good question “Why all the Letters in Algebra”
  2. Some translation (aka direct instruction on the conventions)
  3. And, then the core of the lesson. A card sort. We matched cards with a x b to cards with ab, and b x b to b2, and we kept going a x b x b, and b 2, etc. etc.

(I love card sorts. I love how they prompt collaborative work, and aren’t worksheets, make things a tiny bit more tangible. I particularly love them for teaching equivalence. I wrote here about how playing Concentration is a go to activity for me)

Pro Tip: My new favorite way to make card sorts is using GoogleSlides. Subscribe to receive my tips.

  1. But, as much as I love card sorts, I’ve been thinking about how I could raise the bar, and ask students to do some deeper thinking (to mix directional metaphors)

So after we matched the cards, I distributed some critical thinking questions:  Which were hard? Which were easy? Why do certain cards go together? What do the symbols mean? Write your own examples (because, goals )

Results: It was the first math class after vacation, and all of us were having a slow time getting back to work/school, so something like three quarters of my class conveniently, um, overlooked, the question that asked them to write with words the first time through.

But, in the end, I had one of the best student comments I’ve seen in a while:

Student writing "Tho my mind was pudding we eased into learning. Was very nice"

Pudding brain. I totally get this metaphor.

Also, I take that as a victory.

(This if from my metacognitive exit tickets, read more here)

And, those extra questions? I added them in and prettied it up, and put it all on Teachers pay Teaches for the next person teaching their students to read algebra.

Fall 2020 Update: I love this activty, but found it often wasn’t enough practice on it’s own…. so I made 8 different worksheets. #onaroll #differentiation.

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What I’m emailing myself (Winter Vacation Edition) 1.2.19

What I did with my winter vacation:

  • Rest, try not to think too much about work.

 

(I first wrote about it here. I kept the focus on getting over the feeling of being stuck in math, but added a couple of different math skills. Now it’s in my TPT store with all the handouts to cover fractions, ratios, percents OR bar graphs)

  • Caught up on some of the links I’ve saved:

Free Growth Mindset Posters (from WeAreTeachers)

Teaching from Mistakes  (from Mind/Shift)

Taking Choice Menus to the Next Level  (from John Spencer)

((I really want to do this last one, but I have not figured out what it might look like in my class. #NewYearsTeachingResolutions. Any ideas?))

 

Happy 2019!

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