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Engaging All Learners

4/3/2019

Classes are made up of so many different types of learners and abilities. How can we keep everyone challenged, engaged, and meeting his or her individual goal?

Here is an example of an activity that engages all students.

We are finishing up our fraction unit in the fifth grade. This year the curriculum extends their knowledge of addition and subtraction of fractions, as well as exploring and practicing strategies for both multiplication and division of fractions. In about two months we covered a lot of ground, building understanding both conceptually and abstractly.

Today, we did a sort where students had to determine the proper equation and model that would work with a particular story problem. Problems would include all operations. Students worked through seven problems, in partnerships, using appropriate strategies, and mathematical reasoning.

One group, however, were set off with a different task. In order to challenge them, they were put on a quest to write 7 story problems that would be appropriate for each equation. I was pleased to see the enthusiasm the two boys had when presented with the task. The story problems were unique and creative. They added models and solved each appropriately. At the end of class, they had the opportunity to share their work; they presented a problem they created to the rest of the class then the class needed to determine what would be an appropriate equation for solving their problem.

Allowing the students to create the problems engaged the students even more than having them do the sort. It also met the objective for the lesson. A simple alternative really made a difference and didn’t require alternative materials or extra work for the students. This is an example of how more of the same work, doesn’t really challenge or enrich the highest of learners. Fluid, and creative thinking when lesson planning or deciding on tasks is imperative. It allows educators to truly differentiate and enrich all students at all levels.

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Morning Meeting

3/15/2019

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Cluster Wide Morning Meeting is an initiative I started a few years ago in order to build community among our youngest learners at the Renaissance Charter School. The last Wednesday of every month students in grades K-5 convene in the auditorium for a brief 20-minute check in. Every Meeting follows the same protocol:

Greeting-all meetings start off with the following Call and ResponseGreeting: “Good Morning Cluster 1!” Students respond with: “Good Morning Christina!” At this time I invite students to say Good Morning to those around them with a pleasant greeting, a proper handshake, and a smile.

Positive Share- Three students participate in a Positive Share from different grades. Students who volunteer for this positive share start each Positive Share by answering the silly question of the day, before sharing one cool thing they are learning in school.

Academic Share- Each month, one classroom volunteers to share a project, activity, or a lesson they completed. This time allows other classes to see what other grades are working on. Students read their published stories, share a Social Studies’ skit, demonstrate a science experiment or show off a math project during this share.

Activity- Finally we end each meeting with an Activity. This is usually a game of some sort. Some of our favorite games include: twenty questions, Hum-Dinger, and Charades.

This year we added monthly awards to our agenda. Awards we recognized thus far include: Kindness, Good Listening, Effort, Responsibility, Curiosity, and Initiative. We honor the students who receive the award with a shout out, nice photo and applause. Photos are posted on the 3rdFloor for all to see.

I find Morning Meeting to be extremely powerful. Through this experience students find newfound bravery in public peaking, learn to listen to others and sit through a presentation, recognize names and faces they encounter as they walk through the building, and learn about topics taught in other grades. It’s a wonderful feeling to know what other friends are learning and to see students take pride in the work they completed. For me, I don’t get much time working with younger grades. It’s fun for me to learn names of the students I’ll eventually teach math to. It’s a time that shows the cluster that we are all united and support one another. I’ve received so much positive feedback from kids, and it makes me so happy that they too look forward to our monthly gatherings.

If you have any fun and wacky questions you want to hear at our next Morning Meeting, comment below!

Greeting:

Positive Share:

Teachers caught wearing stripes during Morning Meeting!!

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Estimation 180

2/11/2019

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Through the years, I gathered a few Go-to Websites that I use weekly as Do Nows for my students. One of my favorites is Estimation 180. This website gives students various estimation challenges that build student number sense and problem solving skills. The website is run by a middle school teacher, Andrew Stadel. He is very popular in the I Teach MathTwitter Community. (I’ve also taken a few courses with his pals Dan Meyer, Graham Fletcher and Robert Kaplinsky. I thank them all very much for making me a better math teacher).

Estimation is a very challenging skill for elementary grade students, and yet I find it to be the most important skill to teach. We survive life through estimation: Do we have enough money? How much paint should I purchase? Is this enough fabric? How many copies should I make?I think we all see the point. However, with students they live for the exact. I notice that my fourth graders are most reluctant to make estimations than my fifth graders. Specifically, I’m trying to change their mindset that estimation is a guess, but rather logically and mathematically reasoning.

The Estimation challenges are photos of various items, people, or things. Students are asked to guess how many, or how tall, or how long something may be. The photograph always gives enough clues for students to make a reasonable estimate-using math. For example, in the very first challenge, Mr. Stadel is standing next to a fence. Students must figure out how tall Mr. Stadel is using the information provided in the photo as well as prior knowledge. In the various subsequent challenges, we use the knowledge of Mr. Stadel’s height to figure out the height of the rest of his family, and even his Christmas tree. I love how the challenges build on one another; this helps students to use math, rather than just a guess. In addition, each challenge requests students to make a low estimate, high estimate, and reasonable estimate with an explanation of their thinking. My students are very comfortable with this process.

Recently, my fourth grade students worked through the following challenges:

The objective of these challenges are for students to estimate the value of each glass container of coins. Working through the very first challenge with pennies was a "doozy." They simply did not know where to start. I noticed through explanations that all 26 students guessed. This is very surprising that they did not have prior knowledge of rolling coins. The scaffolding started there. Just like in reading I wanted to build some prior knowledge. We talked about what we knew about a penny: the size and value. We established vocabulary of what a “roll” and “container” meant in this challenge. From there we determined an estimate for how many pennies in a roll and how many rolls do we think are in the container? We followed this process throughout the challenges.

Overall, my students did better with each challenge, and some felt comfortable with the stated process; more than half continue to display difficulty. Explanations lacked reasoning, but guessing. And some students had troubling explaining how they received the value of each container. My biggest take away is that some students simply were not listening to strategies from other students and their learning did not progress. If they were confused they didn't ask questions. As much as I had other students reiterate was they learned from their peers, some just weren’t absorbing what was happening in these very similar problems.

As a result, I realized the importance of continued practice with estimation and tasks like these. I understand that the fear and frustration of slow growth may deter teachers from continuing to provide these types of tasks during whole group instruction but rather use it as an enrichment for children who finish early. I look at it differently. This is important. This builds number sense. This is a must. Perhaps visiting Estimation180 one time a week is not enough and maybe I need to increase time spent on it?

I believe that all types of learners can be successful with Estimation180; I just need to adjust the way in which it’s scaffolded based on the needs of the class. Strategies that I’ve implemented with my fourth graders since the stated tasks include :

Continuing down the money path, searching for other Estimation 180 tasks that may have children finding the value.
Performing a “What do I Notice in the picture and how can it help me?” prior to sending children off to work in pairs or independently.
Having children write reflections on what they learned after the discussion. Did students pick up on big key ideas?
Creating a visual activity sheet for students to complete to guide thinking, rather than using a blank sheet in the notebook.
Reiteration of what they understand from a friend, as well as when confusion happens, they state the last thing they understood.

These strategies increased student success. I'm optimistic that with continued practice, my students' critical thinking skills will improve. The best part is that even with the struggle, the kids still enjoy our Wednesday with Estimation 180. If you have additional comments and/or suggestions, do not hesitate to reach out.

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Notice? Wonder?

1/25/2019

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I love to start most of my lessons with two questions: What do you notice? What do you wonder?This sharing of student thinking is very powerful.

Lets take a look at it in action…

To start my fourth graders off with a unit on fractions, we dove into a Mathematics In The City Curriculum to solve Day One’s Field Trip Problem. The premise of this scenario is that students are taking four cars to different field trips around the city. The school provided submarine sandwiches for each group to eat at lunch. Group size differed and so did the amount of sandwiches given to each group. Students are tasked with the problem of finding out if the distribution of sandwiches is fair and to determine how much of the sandwich each student will eat for lunch.

Before reading the scripted story, I posted four photos to the board (provided by MITC). Each photo showed the various groupings and sandwiches. I gave students a few minutes to Notice and Wonder before we started to chat about what we saw.

I have found through the years that its always best to write down everything students say. For example one student noticed that in the poster two boys looked like they were thinking. Essentially, it didn’t help with what was mathematically happening, but I noticed that by writing this thought down, it helps with student buy in. This willingness to continue the mathematical journey goes a long way. They feel great about sharing something. It must be valuable if the teacher is writing it down…right?

So what happened in this 10-minute process? Students noticed the sizing of groups, how many sandwiches each group received, which group got more sandwiches, how many total sandwiches are there, how many total children are going on the field trip. They wondered what the groups would do with the subs, wondered if the subs would be split, wondered if each student would get the same amount, and wondered how to cut the subs fairly. They set up the entire story problem before I even shared the scenario! At this moment, I have super engaged students that did all the heavy lifting, and are ready to tackle the problem with great understanding of the goal.

Whether you are a teacher, tutor, or a parent trying to help your child with homework, I challenge you to start a lesson with: What do you notice? What do you wonder? I’d like to hear about your success. Comment below!

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Unpacking Multistep Word Problems in Fourth Grade

10/17/2018

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Fourth graders begin unpacking their curriculum working with large numbers…very large numbers. They need to read, write, say, and calculate with numbers up to 1 million. It becomes a bit of a challenge saying these numbers let alone anything else. Adults don’t even do this. However, these fourth graders are expected to. Not only is it a mouthful to say these numbers, it becomes challenging to deal with these numbers in word problems.

Getting students to persevere through multistep problems is a math teacher’s goal. Sometimes these problems turn into a reading extravaganza and the math simply gets lost. After, looking at student data, multistep problem solving is always an area where we need to improve.

So how do we get them to persevere?

This past week the fourth graders learned a strategy of unraveling the problem. Reading the entire problem at one time is tricky for these youngsters. So the strategy involves students reading the problem one line at a time. All problems are written on one page and folded in such a way that they can only see one part of the problem at a time. They unfold the first flap to see the first sentence of the problem and a prompt of: What questions are you thinking about? Begin drawing your math model. These problems must be complete before moving on to the next sentence of the problem. When they are ready, students unfold the second part where they again need to think about questions and add to their math model before moving on. This process continues until they get to the problem’s question. Continuing to ask their own questions and adding to their model.

What have I noticed? Students are slowing down and making sense of the problem. The questions they ask reflect understanding of what's happening in the number story. Often, I am finding students asking and answering the final question before they even unravel it. They get so excited when predict the question. The multi-steps become less daunting as they add various unknowns to their math model when they receive more information. The best part is…the students are enjoying it; looking at it as challenge, rather than impossible. They’ve demonstrated such success in a few short days.

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Engaging All Learners

Morning Meeting

Estimation 180

Notice? Wonder?

Unpacking Multistep Word Problems in Fourth Grade

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