Flashbacks, non math #julychallenge

Random tidbit…one last post to end July.

While sitting outside of Game Day Popcorn  last week, my TMC roommates and I were chatting about our afternoon sessions.  @hfoster17 mentions Flashbacks.

I said- I use flashbacks.  @fibanachos says she used them years ago.  Something was said about  stumper.  OMG. I had Stumpers in my flashbacks too!

At that moment I realized I had gotten Flashbacks Structure from @fibanachos (whom I just met last year at TMC13) many, many years ago at a conference session.   Isn’t that cool.

Card Tossing & Spiraling Curriculum #tmc14

Awesome session Mary and Alex!  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The session focused on their experiences with Grade 10 Applied students ( Canada).  The entire course is activity based which allows students to not miss out on big ideas as they would in a traditional unit by unit aligned course.
Students have repeated opportunities to experience big ideas. The tasks are rich  with multiple entry points and different approaches to solving.  It’s a collaborative environment with accountable talk.  There are fewer disciplinary issues with increased engagement.

Each 6 weeks a mini – exam over entire course up to that point takes place.  Questions are in context and tied to activities they have completed.

We began with beads and pennies on our desks and this task… Cole has 2 smarties and 3 juju bed for $.18 while Noah has 4 smarties and 2 juju be for $.20.  They shared that systems are presented this way – no algebraic forms- for the first several weeks of class.  I, personally, can see how effective this strategy could be.

The next activity shared was Sum of Squares (he doesn’t refer to it as Pythagoras Theorem, yet – or did he say ever?)

Students are asked to cut all squares from side length 1 to side length 26.  Each square is labeled with side length, perimeter, area.  Then they build with them.

Basically students explore and eventually they focus on triangles formed with question, are there 3 you cannot make a triangle with?   Which combinations form different types of triangles. Begin looking at 3-4-5 triangle families, similar triangles (Kate suggested dilations here), discuss opposite side and adjacent sides, then give them a TRIG table and allow them to figure it out.

Compare side lengths with perimeter, or side length with areas.  The possibilities of math concepts are endless.
We ended the day with Card Tossing by collecting data, then using rates to make some predictions.

Video of Alex & Nathan picture below is only a screenshot.

@AlexOverwijk downed by @nathankraft 75 to 72

Each person in the room completed several trials of tossing our cards for 20 seconds.  We found our average rate of success, then determined who we thought might beat King Card Tosser.

Alex asked us to predict how long they needed to toss if he gave Nathan a 35 (?) card advantage so it would be super close and exciting.  Our prediction 38 seconds about 75 cards. Many ways of making the predictions were possible. Not to shabby, huh?

This task was fun, exciting, engaging.  Definitely on the to-do list.

This approach is definitely something I would like to consider, if administration will allow it!

Patiently Waiting to Get into My Room

We have major renovations going on in our school, which will continue throughout the school year.  I am biting at the bit to get in my room to get it ready, but it seems that’s not any time soon.  So I wait.

I have many ideas bouncing in my head but I feel actually being there is what it will take to pull some ideas together.

I initially thought about painting the walls, but time and lack of decision will not allow it.  So here’s my color scheme for now…

My walls are a buttery yellow.  My teacher chairs and window treatments are the floral fabric seen above.  I completed those last summer and this fabric is very happy beside the wall color.

My tall wooden shelf is at home painted Watery Atoll Aqua.  I have many green baskets, storage boxes that compliment this shade of blue.  If time allows, I will paint my teacher desk and short shelf as well.

I picked up some green fabric (on shelf below the floral in picture) to cover my bulletin boards, two of which I will border with this gears motif…

Essential Questions for current units of study will be on one of these boards.  The other one will toggle between visual patterns, notice & wonder, Would You Rather and other thought-provoking prompts, hoping to integrate student interaction somehow.

One of my skinny boards up front will be used as an anchor chart for Sentence Starters to build accountable talk/debate,  questioning.

I would like to play off this poster I saw at Mardel’s while at TMC…

Good Thinkers Spotted Here to celebrate out of the box ideas, questions, student statements.  My concern @tchmathculture and  @cheesemonkeys will this add to status in a non-productive way?

Somewhere in the room, I would like  Shout-Out space for students to celebrate successes as the year progresses.  Last year, I used a Wall of Champions, would like a similar idea, but not necessarily limited to academics. Here’s a suggestion from Pinterest

Ideas/Pros/Cons

Patiently Waiting to Get into My Room

We have major renovations going on in our school, which will continue throughout the school year.  I am biting at the bit to get in my room to get it ready, but it seems that’s not any time soon.  So I wait.

I have many ideas bouncing in my head but I feel actually being there is what it will take to pull some ideas together.

I initially thought about painting the walls, but time and lack of decision will not allow it.  So here’s my color scheme for now…

My walls are a buttery yellow.  My teacher chairs and window treatments are the floral fabric seen above.  I completed those last summer and this fabric is very happy beside the wall color.

My tall wooden shelf is at home painted Watery Atoll Aqua.  I have many green baskets, storage boxes that compliment this shade of blue.  If time allows, I will paint my teacher desk and short shelf as well.

I picked up some green fabric to cover my bulletin boards, two of which I will border with this gears motif…

Essential Questions for current units of study will be on one of these boards.  The other one will toggle between visual patterns, notice & wonder, Would You Rather and other thought-provoking prompts, hoping to integrate student interaction somehow.

One of my skinny boards up front will be used as an anchor chart for Sentence Starters to build accountable talk/debate,  questioning.

I would like to play off this poster I saw at Mardel’s while at TMC…

Good Thinkers Spotted Here to celebrate out of the box ideas, questions, student statements.  My concern @tchmathculture and  @cheesemonkeys will this add to status in a non-productive way?

Somewhere in the room, I would like  Shout-Out space for students to celebrate successes as the year progresses.  Last year, I used a Wall of Champions, would like a similar idea, but not necessarily limited to academics. Here’s a suggestion from Pinterest

Ideas/Pros/Cons

Google Form to Track RTI

Last Spring I had one block designated for RTI.  Initially our focus was on students below benchmark on their PLAN as an indicator of their ACT.  All 11th graders in Kentucky take ACT during March.  After ACT, we began to look at their Discovery Education Benchmarks for their current course to highlight students below proficiency or those not progressing at an expected rate.

When assigned to RTI the previous year, I was a mess.  I never felt I had a good grasp on my purpose and end goal.  This year, I went in with a plan of action.

For the ACT, first half of the semester,  I deconstructed 4 practice exams, looking for big ideas that correlated with suggested topics from ACTs website for students within this score range.  I used varied strategies (Notice/Wonder, visual patterns, white boarding, small groups, individual, online review options, etc) to interact with students while utilizing these big ideas as our initial goal.  Each student took a 15-minute evaluation using Method Test Prep to give me a  baseline (unless their current teacher could provide me with other evidence).  Some students had taken the actual ACT and we were able to use those results as a beginning step as well.

From Discovery Education Benchmarks, I considered the areas students were not progressing in and provided similar strategies as with the ACT above, just more focused on specific content as it pertained to their course of study (ie algebra 2 vs geometry) to help them move forward.

I needed a way to track the variety of students, so I created a Google form and placed a link directly on my desktop.  At the end of RTI, during planning or afterschool, I could quickly enter information.  This intent was just to track who I was working with, how often.  However, the goal of RTI is to provide supports for students that will enhance their learning and transfer to achievement.  As I met with individual students, we discussed where they were and I allowed them to set their own goal.  This was in their their file, they wrote it out, but I need to modify my form and enter their goal, along with final results in order to help me see the learning all in one place.  If you’re not familiar, responses to g-forms are shared with you in a spreadsheet, so you can sort by student if you like.

 

My form was simple and included the following:

Student Name.

Date. (there was a time stamp, but sometimes it may be after school or the following day before I entered their information).

Time of day – drop down menu. (RTI was 3rd block, but if a student’s schedule didn’t work well with that time, I met with them during my planning or afterschool ESS).

Topics Addressed – checkboxes with an option for Other.

Method Test Prep results (from evaluation, Practice Test 1, Practice Test 2 and/or Lessons they completed on their own time/during RTI.)

Misc. Box to enter notes of how much we completed, successful or need to continue, etc.

 

My intentions are to include DE Benchmark with subcategories and reporting levels this year as well as a place to record their goal, comments and reflection each time I meet with them.  I need to add ACT score, EOC score as well as DE Benchmark final results.

Even though I currently do not have a section of RTI assigned, this is a form I plan to modify and use within my own classroom.  I will utilize our Method Test Prep in the fall to set baselines and see needed areas for attention, then focus

 

Math and Kentucky Program Reviews (Art, Writing, PLCS)

In Kentucky, we have Program Reviews for Arts/Humanities,  Writing a nd Practical Living / Career Studies (PLCS).  My interpretation… the idea is to ensure all teachers across disciplines are integrating concepts, strategies into their classrooms on a regular basis in efforts to make connections with student interests and enhance their learning experiences. 

I have used many routines from Making Thinking Visible over the past two years to improve writing-to-learn and writing-to-demonstrate learning opportunities for students.  I feel they will tell you our reflection and analysis of work through writing and discussion makes their learning stick more.

As I plan to revisit these routines with @druinok and some other stats peeps, I was exploring this and ran across Artful Thinking.

Definitely check out the Thinking Routines and Curriculum Connections links for some insightful resources that can help other content areas find purposeful, quality connections to art for their courses. 

Finally, a tweet from @approx_normal the other morning provided these awesome classroom tasks focusing on Career Technical Education.

Hope this provides some helpful information for teachers looking to make connections in the areas of Arts, PLCS and useful thinking routines to help with Writing implementation. 

@Plickers #tmc14 #myfav

An APP I downloaded early in the summer, then forgot about it until dinner Friday night.  Something was said which triggered a thought, so I pulled out my phone to share with my #tmc14 roomies. Click here for more info.

I was already scheduled for a #myfav Saturday a.m. so why not introduce this fun app to others?!?

I used the hotel’s business desk to print my paper clickers, set up my account and ran back upstairs to practice. 

A QR code of sorts.  Each plicker has a number you can assign to students.  The answer you wish to submit should be at top of your page when scanning.

We scanned reponses.  Changed answers by rotating our plicker. We saved, opened and cleared responses.  It tagged the reponses w time and date.

You could see response distribution immediately.  It even listed each student’s response individually.

We were using the 5.5 inch plickers (you can print a larfer size, too) and my  device read them at 20ish feet away.

As folks arrived the next morning, I passed out plickers and asked them if they minded helping me later. 

I shared my story, asked them to hold their plickers for response A just to ensure I didn’t need to calibrate.  I scanned the room.

Based on reading tweets later, it was described as mind-blowing, #amazeballs and some other gasping descriptions too embarrassing to share.

I asked a couple of them to change their answers.  Scanned again. Yep.  They worked again. 

Smiles. Ooooo’s and Ahhhs.  It was a good thing.

Since #myfav, several have shared ideas for their claases.

Laminated.
Printed on cardstock. 
Students keep in INB pocket.
Color coded for each class. Student’s name on outer edge.
Single set laminated, velcro dots to attach to desks for quick access.
Laminated to back of INB.
Others I know I missed.

Pros:
Free.
iOS or android.
40 different codes for larger classes.
One device.
Lose a plicker, print a new one.
Immediate feedback can sync with online account to display results.

What’s not to love?

Now to find out where I can get one of those cool t-shirts someone tweeted about!

Add-on:
Question in comments concerning how to get results graph on computer screen…

Need to create an online account if you have not already and link by signing in on the app.

When you are logged in online with your class device, mine is desktop for my projector, go to my account.

Choose Classes.
Add a new class, name it.
To populate class list, just type name and hit enter. It will save names automatically.
Click classes.
Choose class.
Click Teach!

You need to hit refresh on your handheld device to see class.

Once you add question & title it, it should show up on class screen immediately.

You have a choice to see Grid – student names (option to show or hide responses) or Graph to show response distribution.

On device create question, check to save.

Choose question, pencil to edit and you have option to delete, clear responses or choose correct response (can choose multiple answers too) by tapping answer. Should turn from blue to green/red.

Let me know if this is too confusing. Still learning myself.

Walking a Z-score #tmc14

I was super excited about spending time with experienced Statistics teachers this past week at #TMC14.  On our first day together, we discussed, well, I listened mostly, what big ideas students seemed to struggle with.  A couple of teachers shared that their students could compute a z-score, but for whatever reasons, this past year, they had trouble explaining what the score actually meant.

My thought is to use something similar to  students plotting points on a number line.  Suggestions are welcomed.

Materials:
Tape
Post-its
String/yarn 2 colors, one shorter, the other at least 6 times its length.
Markers
Ziploc bag

Inside each bag I will include mean score, and standard deviation on an index card along with a list of data values from that sample,  a string length to model 1 standard deviation, another string length for our axis. 

Students will layout their “graph” with a longer string as the axis, taping the ends down.   What I heard others saying was that students wanted to report a probability for the z-score.  My initial thoughts are to keep it 1 dimensional and maybe alleviate this misconception.

They will place a post-it for the mean value label on the graph, use the standard deviation string to label data values occuring at each sd on the graph.

Next, they will locate the other data values on the number line and place a post-it.  I will ask them to come up with a measure of each data point using the sd string as their unit of measure.  Some discussion about what their estimates represent and my hopes that after plotting and sharing, someone will develop the z-score on their own.

Next, they will practice calculating z-scores and add to the data post-its.  They will choose one of the z-score post-its.  Next they will stand at the mean and estimate the location of their data value by “walking” on the number line, using the standard deviation string as their measurement device.  If everyone in the group agrees with the locations, the post-it note is placed on the graph.

The next team member repeats the process with another data value and so on until all z-scores have been placed.

Snap picture of each groups model.  Share out with class.  Discussions as needed. 

Quick-write reflection as the exit ticket for the day.

Just getting some ideas down, definitely some revisions to come.

I am new to statistics, so I value any feedback from seasoned teachers. 

#tmc14 My Favorites

Chalk Talk, Making Thinking Visible
Intro to Thinking Routines

Black Lights and Highlighters

Ghosts in the Graveyard, Kim Hughey, Math Tales from the Spring

Grudge, Nathan Kraft’s I Shall Never Play a Review Game Again
Used most Fridays, either first or last 10-15 minutes of class to highlight our big ideas/skills from the week.

Plickers all you need is paper and a smart phone. New app for me, so I am still learning. What little we’ve played around, it has some great potential!

The Moving Walkway #julychallenge Post 19

As I am walking through the airport this morning, it was not crowded and had I been brave, I would have collected some data to enable me to create a nice little work-rate problem.

How much time does that moving walkway actually save me?

Scenario 1: walk the distance.
Scenario 2: ride the distance
Scenario 3: walk while riding
Hmmm…Scenario 4: while riding, walk against the moving walkway.

The next time I have an early flight, when it’s not crowded.  You bet I will be recording some times.