Dear CONNECTors
Hello There CONNECTers!
As I’m writing this it is right around to Valentine’s Day and with #LoveTeachingWeek2020 in mind I thought I would talk about a few things I love to do to engage my students in math. Now, I’m not always successful with this and I feel like I’ve been struggling a lot in my 4th year of teaching, but when these things work they are great!
First off, I love working with vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNPS). I’m very fortunate to have whiteboards or windows covering all four walls of my classroom so there is plenty of space for students to spread out. Last year I used this in my precalc class for practicing graphing sine and cosine functions with different transformations. Students loved being able to see what their classmates were doing when they got stuck and they could ask each other for help more easily. I also love using these in my intermediate algebra classroom. Getting students out of their seats and doing math where everyone can watch has led to some great conversations and keeps my students more engaged with the math and each other.
I would also extend this love to other nonpermanent workspaces. I have whiteboards that are blank on one side and graphs on the other side — Amazon Link — and I will often use them for games like jeopardy or just class wide practice. Students also know they can use them as scratch paper anytime they want. This year I have also been having students write on their desks with expo markers and they love working out problems without the fear of making mistakes and erasing on paper over and over again.
Another activity that I have used in the past and found that’s students hated at first, but appreciated at the end was math speed dating. I set it up so a pair of students start with the same problem, have them solve it together so they are both experts and then one side of the room rotates. As they move, they trade problems with each new person and have a chance to get help from the expert across from them. Having students as the experts meant that I got to focus on facilitating and watching out for major mistakes or misunderstandings. It also meant I could focus on one or two students at a time rather than being pulled in multiple directions.
One last thing I have tried this year is a semi-flipped classroom in my Statway Statistics class. While it is not perfect and there are a lot of things I need to improve, I love that my job in the class is really to be a math coach more than anything else. Students go through a lesson online and then work with a table team in a workbook during class. Not all teams have been successful but for the most part they work together to understand and learn the material. I float around the classroom and answer questions when a table can’t figure something out on their own. I also really love that the Statway curriculum uses real world data from Gallup polls, news media surveys, and other research bodies. My students appreciate that they are learning math and acting as statisticians to analyze real world data, often surrounding topics they are passionate about like politics, homelessness, race, and gender.
No matter what activities or lessons I plan, I always try to keep in mind whether it will engage students in the material or just lead to compliance with little to no learning. This year especially my biggest love for teaching has come from students teaching one another and working together to solve problems. Take some time to think about what you love about teaching this week. And if you have any activities you love please share them in the comments or on Twitter with @mctmCONNECT and me!
-Meredith @MsWebster5961