Complain Less, Learn More

We just finished perpendicular bisectors and I found an activity in my book. It involved a map, three fire stations, and a house. Students had to fold and cut and such to form the perpendicular bisectors and to decide which fire station was the closest to the house.

I had given them very detailed instructions (see here) but I was fully expecting to hear the complaining, whining, and annoying comments such as "I quit, I don't know what we're doing, I don't even know what you're talking about, What do we do now, I don't know what to do next".

I just prefaced the activity with a little speech about how I would not be responding to any of those comments. I told them if they needed help, I would be glad to help them but they could only ask me a specific question, no whining allowed.  

And...it worked. Students were cutting, drawing, folding, but most importantly, following directions. The classroom environment was much more peaceful and I realized yet another reason why that class drains me. The negative energy is just too exhausting. I should have made this rule from the very beginning. It's such an obvious thing to say but it's just another example of how I fail to communicate my expectations, and end up upset when they are not met.

I also modified a perpendicular activity from @crstn85. My plan was that after doing the first activity, they would know how to do the second activity with less instruction. We didn't get to it but I really like the idea of measuring and converting between centimeters and miles. Maybe I will use that one instead next year.

Baby steps.

Contingency Contract

On our midterm exam for our methods grad class, one of our questions asked us to design a contingency contract. You may have heard of these in college or in the business world. Basically, they are behavior contracts.

You list the requirements. Student agrees to the requirements they will do. You spell out the reward/privilege/grade/outcome. Discuss. Agree. Sign.

I'm pretty sure I experienced some of these during college. The instructor would list the assignments for the semester, how many points each one was worth, and then how many points needed to get an A, B, C, etc. Ironically, I don't remember any discussion...

At the time that I was designing mine, I couldn't figure out how to make it work for assignments. I guess it's easier in college when you meet less than daily and require bigger assignments. But there's no way I want to list all of the homework assignments, quizzes, and tests for an entire semester. So instead, I wrote mine based on how to earn daily participation points. I currently don't do this. Actually, I've never given participation points. But since classroom management is my downfall, this might be a good way to clearly spell out my expectations and not feel bad for enforcing the consequences.

I wasn't too familiar with the idea before this assignment so I thought I'd share my contigency contract with you. Maybe you don't need it but you could always use it as a template.

Choice Board

Earlier in the semester in our methods grad course, we had an assignment to create a choice board for our content area. We had recently discussed diversity and multiple intelligences and this assignment was a type of assessment over those topics.

A choice board is a visual display of optional products the students can complete in order for you to assess their learning.  The products that are displayed on the choice board represent a variety of multiple intelligences.  

There are two ways to design the board.  (1) All products assess the same standard / content, and students choose one to complete.  (2) Product options assess different standards / content, and students choose more than one to complete (i.e., one from each standard).

I chose the first option because it was the easiest.

Here were our instructions:

• Create a Choice Board relating to content you teach in your class. 
• Choice Boards must be visually appealing – easy to read, neat, larger than a piece of paper (poster board or display board would work well.
• If assessment relates to one standard / content, you must have at least five product options; If multiple product options are displayed related to multiple standards / content, you must have at least three product options per standard.
• Each product option relating to the same standard must address a different multiple intelligence. 
• Any information students need to complete the products needs to be though through and included either on the Choice Board, or as a supplemental handout (which could be laid by the board).
• You will bring the finished Choice Board to class and explain the standard(s) and choices with your classmates.
  

At the time of the assignment I had just finished teaching parallel lines and transversals. My first year of teaching I had found an assignment where students had to draw their own city and place specific locations (library, school, park, etc) at specific angle pairs (corresponding to, at alternate interiors, etc). I took that idea and branched out from there to create product descriptions for other multiple intelligences.

The high school teachers decided actual poster/display board was a little elementary for us so I decided to make a clickable PowerPoint.

Here are the seven slides in case you just want to see. Ok, because I want you to look.

Here is the link if you want to use it.


If you do use it, please come back and share what happened!

Lee Jenkins

We had a teacher's institute with Lee Jenkins, From L to J Consulting. It was really good and I don't even know how to blog about all of it yet so I'm just going to post some good quotes for now.

The best way to do more in less time is to build a team.

Keep digging until you find the root cause.

The number one requirement of leaders is to create more leaders.

Data requires trends, not one or two data points.

Management means meeting individual needs; leadership means meeting common needs of the individual's.

A poorly designed skeleton cannot hold anything.

Ask why at least five times until you find out why.

Students are held accountable for short term memory but we're held accountable for their long term memory.

In this country, we don't know the difference between grade inflation and success.

The job of leaders is to remove barriers.

Great leaders offer hope and help. Poor leaders offer hoops and hype.

If barriers aren't removed, people give up or move on.

Kids who don't understand math are not seeing the pattern. Without the pattern, they just try to memorize rules.

It is not the responsibility of educators to motivate students but to determine what is causing them to lose their motivation and stop such practices.

Fair is every kid meeting the same standard, but not always the same method.

Better systems equal better results.

Celebrate does not mean reward.

People need a point for there head and a picture for their heart.

Geometry Sort

I personally love sorting. There is just something about putting things where they belong. Neatly.

But it's also a great teaching tool. I have to give all credit to my instructional coach because I never would have thought of this on my own.

I'm supposed to be teaching a unit on triangles: isosceles triangle theorem, triangle sum, inequality, altitude, median, midsegment, and bisectors. I haven't taught all of them before so I didn't have much to go on. I searched all my usual places and couldn't find much either.

As luck would have it, I happened on this pdf and on page 4 and a lesson was born.

I copied the cards on hot pink card stock, cut them out, and put them in an envelope. Students worked together in pairs, one envelope per pair.

The only instruction I gave them was to sort them into piles. I was extremely unhelpful and would not answer any questions except to say "Do whatever you think." I gave them about three minutes, walking around to see and hear what they were thinking.

Then I asked them how many piles they had. They answered with 3, 4, or 5. I told them they should have exactly 5 piles. So they sifted through their piles and resorted.

Again, I'm offering no assistance.

Next I passed out their notes for the day. At the top there were 5 empty boxes with labels. I asked them to match their piles to the labels and place them in each box.

Again, not a word.

I then held up one card to the doc camera and asked what they labeled it. We went through each of the piles and from the feedback I was getting, it seemed that every group got them right.

We had good discussion about how they sorted, why they picked that label, what did the markings mean, how was each pile different, and so on. I had them move the piles and then draw the diagram into each box. Collect the envelopes, and continue on with our notes.

I love this because it was a lot more meaningful than me saying, "This is a median. Draw it." It always takes more time than you would expect but the students are so engaged. It's a low risk, non threatening way to get every student involved, prompt good discussions, and definitely kick up the higher order thinking. Anyone can sort. From there, you can take the activity anywhere you want to go.

Every time I do a sorting activity, I just smile so big inside because the kids think they are getting away with not doing math, without noticing that I'm the one getting away with not doing math.

I think this is a strategy I need to hit on more often because it helps me remember why I chose to teach math in the first place and lowers my frustration with the whole when will we ever use this issue.

Plus a little hot pink never hurt anybody.