True or False?

Screen Shot 2014-03-24 at 8.02.56 PMI must give credit to former-colleague “Mr. OC” at Nitschmann Middle School for this novel way to introduce compound events.  Ever since I saw him do it, it’s become a regular part of my practice.  So easy, so effective, and the kids’ reactions are priceless!

First, tell students they are having a quiz… surprise!  Everyone number your papers from 1 to 10.

Next, say with appropriately dramatic pauses,

Teacher: “Number one… true… or false?”

Students: Waiting patiently for the actual question.

Teacher: “Number two… true… or… false?”

Students: “Wait, what was number one?”

Teacher: “Number one was true… or false.”

Students: “No… the QUESTION for number one!?!”

Then a few of them start to catch on.  And… a few still have no idea what’s going on.
I love teaching middle schoolers.

Teacher: “Number three… wait for it… false… or true?”

At this point, some students have randomly answered all ten questions while others wait for me, just in case I decide to switch it up on them.
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After dramatically asking the question ten-fold, it’s time to “grade” our papers.  I read the “correct answers” which I’ve randomly jotted down ahead of time, so as not to be persuaded by my students.  They cheer at “correct” responses and scoff at the ones they missed.  It’s a riot.

We talk about the probability of getting problem #1 correct, #2 correct, and so on.  I ask, “What’s the probability someone would get a perfect paper?”  After writing one half on the board ten times, we decide multiplying the probabilities together will answer our question.

1/1,024 it is.

“How many people got a perfect paper?”

No one has.  As a matter of fact, these quiz scores are usually pretty crappy.  However, the impression this little task makes on students is worth it! 🙂

Irony –> I *just* stumbled upon this great video follow-up!  How neat!

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Why Pi?

IMG_5531Since moving to Texas, I’m a little disappointed that March 14 occurs during our spring break every year.  Several Pi Day traditions have survived in my classroom, despite the fact that I don’t get to celebrate with my students in person.

The day before spring break, I greet every student at my classroom door, hand each of them this greeting card, and wish them an early “Happy Pi Day”.  Upon starting class, we briefly discuss the history of pi and I proceed to recite 50+ digits as my students gaze at the back of the greeting card to catch my bluff… only to realize I really am reciting memorized digits.  This usually challenges a few of them to study and exceed my record post-break.  Someone beats me every year, and it’s usually a student I’d never expect to “own” this type of challenge.  Fun stuff – not very practical, but curiosity about any mathematical topic is powerful, so I’ll take it.

I also tell students to send me a “Happy Pi Day” e-mail on March 14 at 1:59 AM or PM (I don’t judge… it IS spring break after all) and as long as the e-mail message is time-stamped 1:59, the student will gain a bonus point on our next test.  I love watching my inbox explode as a result of this offer.  Students often e-mail me from other time zones and tell me where they’re spending their break.

There is one little issue that’s also an annual Pi Day event, and this one’s not so great.  Every year I ask my 8th graders, “Why is pi approximately 3.14?  Why is it a little more than 3?  Why isn’t it 7.14? Or 25?  WHY PI?”

And then, the crickets chirp a bit.  Then someone says something about decimals that doesn’t make much sense.  Then, they just stare at me.

Teachers who celebrate Pi Day with students – will you make it your mission to help students understand that every circle is about triple the distance around than it is straight across?  Every circle that ever was and every will be must possess this mathematical truth, or it’s simply not a circle.

Some students have memorized a statement like, “Pi is the circumference divided by the diameter.” Not bad.  But, when asked, “But why is pi a little bit more than 3?” in my experience, students have absolutely no idea.

When I taught younger kiddos, we wrapped string around plastic lids and any circular object we could get our hands on, then we measured diameters, and “discovered” pi.  It’s not a new lesson, but it seemed to click with younger students.  Make discovering pi part of your festivities if you don’t already, and enjoy your Pi Day!

P.S.  Next year’s Pi Day will be epic!  I will have to adjust my e-mail challenge to be on 3/14/15 at 9:26.  🙂

And… stunts like this show exactly why I love living in Austin, Texas!

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged | 2 Comments

Facebook, Math, and The Common Core

Screen Shot 2014-03-10 at 8.36.40 AMI try to sort my social media options into little life categories.

Twitter –> math and ed-tech talk

Facebook –> personal friendships

More and more, social media can’t be compartmentalized.  Just as learning can be messy, life expressed through social media isn’t always so concise.

I kept seeing this hand-written math problem with the title “This is Common Core” floating around Facebook.  I did so well keeping my mouth shut about it, until a friend invited my opinion.  So, I posted the problem on my own wall and encouraged discussion and feedback.

While I teach in Texas, where we do not teach the CCSS, I found this problem to be interesting, especially because so many comments absolutely bashed this so-called “new” method… which appears to have been written by an adult with an agenda, but I digress… (By the way, I’d love to specifically know where this work came from.)

My take-away:  Parents and teachers, if a child presented you with work that resembled the “new” way, what would your first reaction be?  Would you first seek to understand the student’s method and thinking, or would you break out a red pen?  I would hope the former.

Feel free to continue the conversation here.

Update: It appears I’m not the only math educator out there who couldn’t stay silent.
Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged | 2 Comments

#SXSWedu 2014 – Highlights

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I just attended my first SXSWedu Conference & Festival.  I’ve never wanted to clone myself more.  I was on choice-overload from day one.  I’m not complaining – I’m simply trying to express how up-my-alley so many of the topics sounded upon reviewing their descriptions.

For past conferences, I chose sessions based on their titles and descriptions, but I found myself looking for the names of familiar presenters as a priority this time.  It was great to see so many colleagues-from-across-the-miles come together in person.  Several of my Twitter-only virtual friends became in-person friends too.  Love that.  I have found my people – it’s great to have friendly faces to “geek” with.

I also had the chance to meet folks from Querium and Nearpod whom I’d only known virtually prior to SXSWedu.  I’m thankful to have had opportunities to work with such classy people on projects that further math education in this exciting 21st century.

How can I sum up four days of ed tech bliss?  No matter the medium, it will fall short of actually being there (goes without saying) but here’s my attempt.  These are sessions I attended first-hand, and you can experience their essence.

Red “nubbins” highlight the session title, and link back to the SXSWedu schedule page, which provides more detail about the session and presenters.

Blue “nubbins” link to additional resources provided in the session.

Twitter “nubbins” will help you get connected with the presenters, as well as search Twitter for that session’s hashtag to see archived conversations online.

Exclamation point “nubbins” provide my biggest take-away from each session.

Did you attend #SXSWedu?  What was your biggest take-away?

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Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Chief ThingLinker Stepping Down

Screen Shot 2014-03-01 at 10.11.46 PMThat’s right.  I’m finally ready to step down from my ThingLink throne and pass the torch. Or something.  What I’m trying to say is… I’ve been doing this iPad thing for a bit.  *I* create the Nearpods… *I* create the Socrative assessments… *I* create the ThingLinks… and it’s time to get my students more involved in creating content.

My first step will be to assign a ThingLink task.  Now that ThingLink has provided a platform for tracking student accounts, I’m ready to take the leap.

I pondered creating a rubric, but since this is the first time my students are creating a math ThingLink, I figure this is more of an instructional and ed-tech ice-breaker.  I’ll use what we all learn from this experience to create a rubric later.

Here’s the write-up I’d planned to share with my students.  Have you asked students to create ThingLinks?  Are you a master at writing rubrics?  Feedback and insight are welcome! 🙂

Here’s a follow-up post with student work samples – enjoy!

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why Blog? Then vs. Now

Screen Shot 2014-02-28 at 10.30.28 PMInspired by this post by Dan Meyer, an abrupt question from a colleague, and the fact that the ticker at the bottom of this page surpassed 1,000,000 earlier this week, the question of “why blog?” is a timely one.

Yes, recently I was asked by a fellow teacher, “So… why do you blog?  Don’t you have anything better to do?”

Ouch.

Why I Began Blogging

This blog was very bare-bones during my final year of teaching in Pennsylvania.  I didn’t post much, but I began the blog in the first place because I understood the value of learning from other teachers who weren’t conveniently a few classroom doors down, but were perhaps in a completely different part of the world.  I found myself regularly sharing and tweaking things with my (local) colleagues that I had run across on other teachers’ blogs.  I wanted to share my own ideas too, but didn’t feel that I had a lot to say.  I thought every blog post had to be earth-shattering or practice-changing… but realized in time that some of the blogs I found the most helpful simply shared authentic day-to-day classroom experiences and resources.

A New Purpose

Our family transitioned to Austin, Texas nearly 2 years ago and I joined a district with a 1:1 iPad initiative with gusto.  I wanted to try every app and revamp a lot of my lessons in light of this new tool.  Suddenly, I had a *LOT* to say and share.  Feeling extremely blessed to be a part of the trailblazing, I hoped my blog might help guide others who were on the brink of a 1:1 iPad math classroom experience.  To kickstart my blog, I needed a focus, and boy did I find it!  Thanks to some added encouragement and cheerleading from my pal Lisa Johnson, I felt inspired and frankly responsible to share what I was up to in my classroom with a potentially global audience, through blogging and sharing on Twitter.

Why Blog? Don’t I Have Anything Better To Do?

Blogging has become a regular part of my practice.  Being accountable to a blog forces me to do two very important things – to share and to reflect.  When folks who may not blog, or may not understand the value in reading blogs, ask why I bother, that is the simplest, purest response I can provide.  Through this blog, I’ve also “met” and connected with some amazing people, have received valuable feedback, and have stumbled upon some unique opportunities, like impacting and creating resources for my all-time favorite app.  Glancing at the ticker at the bottom of this page gives me at least a million reasons to continue sharing and reflecting.  I truly thank all of you who share and reflect through blogs – you’ve helped me grow and continue to inspire me!

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Weird Stuff Kids Think

My Algebra students completed a cooperative quadratic QR-code walk-about type task the other day.  They could work with a partner, use a graphing calculator, Desmos, the HMH Fuse app, their homework, notes… everything.  They scanned various QR-codes, which revealed practice problems for them to each complete on a paper work template.  The idea was to facilitate an environment where conversation was rich and necessary.  I find that my face hurts at the end of classes like this because I’m just so darn tickled to hear my students talking, justifying, and using academic vocabulary appropriately.  It’s fun to literally watch them learning… and even MORE fun to watch them TEACHING.

Amidst all this bliss, something quite bizarre happened that caught me completely off guard.  Problem A Part 2 seemed direct and unassuming to me… yet every. single. solitary. student. got. it. wrong.

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Students shared with me that they “didn’t know” they could rearrange the ordered pairs… or that I “never told them” they could do that.

I’m like… WHAT?

This misconception was common between all three of my algebra classes.  They looked at the x-values, and decided this couldn’t possibly be quadratic… if the x-values appeared to have no consistent differences, why even bother looking at the y-values…?!?

Needless to say, I did a little reteaching and represented the ordered pairs in tables like these, but this was not a misconception I had anticipated.

Screen Shot 2014-02-27 at 7.56.43 PMScreen Shot 2014-02-27 at 7.55.59 PM

How do you handle it when students think weird, unanticipated stuff?  When they create rules that aren’t there, and abide by them… en masse?

Posted in Algebra 1 | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

ThingLink as Collaborative Work Space

Screen Shot 2014-02-08 at 8.44.59 AMI saw this ThingLink and was immediately inspired to give the strategy a try.  Why not create a ThingLink to serve as a “collaborative plane” for my students?  I jazzed up a “Unit Organizer” from the “Strategic Instruction Model” with some color-coding by concept, and uploaded the PDF to ThingLink.  I made the link private within my ThingLink channel, then “shared” it by embedding it on my teacher website for students to access.  I wanted students to review for a unit test by working problems together in a provided paper study guide, while having this ThingLink in the “background” so big ideas, definitions, etc. could be added on a whim on their iPads.  A basic geometry unit seemed like a good first ThingLink attempt, especially since it was so vocab-rich.

In groups, students practiced review problems on paper and added key ideas they encountered as “nubbins” to the ThingLink.  As each “nubbin” was updated, all students could see it.  I liked this twist versus simply using paper graphic organizers alone.  All students could access a class-created organizer instantly.

Well, sort of.  In a perfect world that’s what might happen.  Still worth trying again, but here are a few lessons learned.

 Things I learned:

* I don’t think more than one person can edit a ThingLink simultaneously.

* When the wireless network goes down during a task like this, it’s not pretty.

* Students did not continue to add to the ThingLink outside of class time as I’d hoped.

What I will change/do next time:

* Say a prayer for our wireless network beforehand.

Screen Shot 2014-02-08 at 12.39.21 PM* Use an object (a hall pass, hand-on-a-stick, anything easily visible) to pass from group to group which gives only that group permission to have ONE member editing the ThingLink.  The whole class needs to know which group is editing the ThingLink, and take turns.  As far as experience tells me, a ThingLink can’t be simultaneously edited.

* Be more specific with directions.  Maybe assign one concept per group rather than free-for-all editing… or not…?  Maybe an organic free-for-all is better because it will reveal which concepts everyone wants to talk about, and which are being avoided like the plague.

* This could be a nice little extension as a homework assignment too.  Ask each student to make one contribution to the ThingLink, and include his/her name in the nubbin.

Here’s our first, very sparse, attempt!  Hoping to try this again soon.

UPDATE:  Literally, an update that makes ThingLink so much more exciting for classroom use!  Read this —> “Build Your ThingLink Classroom” 

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Teaser…

I may or may not know the math teacher in this video, featured by Querium in their first-ever Tweet…

Posted in Algebra 1 | Leave a comment

ThatQuiz.org: Pre-testing and Post-testing

Screen Shot 2014-01-24 at 8.01.18 AMIf you teach mathematics, your students have devices with internet access, and you’re NOT using ThatQuiz.org… both you and your students are seriously missing out.  My love for this web-app continues to grow as I see its impact on my students, time and again.  My most recent use of ThatQuiz is to take full advantage of the “duplicate” feature built in to the site, allowing pre-and-post-testing with ease.

My algebra students, for example, were learning the basics about integer exponents.  We discovered patterns to justify mathematical truths about zero as an exponent and negative integer exponents, and students had traditional homework from the textbook’s practice workbook.  The next day, I started class by asking students to login to ThatQuiz and take a brief quiz assessing their ability to simplify expressions containing such exponents as I took a lap around the classroom to check homework.

Skitch 1What’s fascinating is the real-time in-your-face (yet non-threatening) feedback ThatQuiz provides students AND me.  A quick glance at a homework “worksheet” completed by who-knows-who (Mom?  Dad?  Sibling?  Tutor?) fades to the background as real-time data truly shows what each student knows.  Right now.  As every student is faced with the summary screen of their own performance on the “quiz”, assumptions about each student’s present level of understanding are confirmed… or possibly interrupted.  Welcome to reality!

 

Skitch 2

I don’t “grade” this experience, but I’d venture to say students find it valuable, and many are thankful that it’s “not for a grade”.  After all, we’re new at this.  We’re practicing. We’re still learning.  And this is the first round of feedback each student has received since flying solo with these exponents.  It would be a shame to discourage students by putting a 50% in the grade book at this point, but seeing that 50% fuels students to seek help and ask questions that otherwise may have gone unexplored.

Skitch 3Fast-forward to later in the week.  Though we’ve begun to discover and generalize other properties of exponents, students are still practicing and applying ways to handle zero as an exponent and negative integer exponents too.  That’s when I login to ThatQuiz.org and use the “duplicate” feature to give students the same quiz from earlier this week, and call it version #2.  Yes, students have already taken this very quiz, but the content isn’t something that can be easily memorized… and with mean scores in the 60% range the first time around, there’s only one direction to go…!

Students welcome the chance to try the “quiz” again, and when met with the summary screen, feel accomplished at the improvement they see.  Does every student do significantly better the second time?  Not necessarily, but the feedback helps students see if they’ve grown.  If they haven’t, they know it, and so do I.  A little-one-on-one tutorial time is due, and perhaps erasing that score and letting the student try again would pack a confidence boost, even without the “grade”.  This experience provides a “safety net” before a “quiz” or “test” that *will* be graded.

Skitch 4Not every topic is conducive to this type of assessment, but fundamentals are great for this routine.  ThatQuiz generates quizzes on lots of topics, and if the one you’re hoping to assess isn’t generated by ThatQuiz, click on the “Browse” option to see if a kindred spirit out there has already created just the quiz you need.

I’d love to hear how you’re using ThatQuiz with your students!  Feel free to comment. 🙂

This post assumes you’ve already signed up for a free ThatQuiz.org teacher account, you’ve created classes, you’ve entered your students’ names and passwords, and you’ve found a creative way to share and maintain each unique class URL.  Doing this initial work is WELL WORTH IT, even if you start tomorrow.  Just sayin’. 😉

 

 

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Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments