i) there are many approaches to teaching and learning. They know a broad range of instructional strategies appropriate to their area of specialization and the subject discipline they teach, and know which strategies are appropriate to help different students achieve different outcomes
In my classroom last year I really focused on math and how to engage students in the lessons through dynamic openers and various activities. This year I have added in math centers and math fluency but I am very pleased with how my stand up problem solving has been refined. This has allowed all my students to feel successful at one aspect of math.
Stand up problem solving is a great way to gage student levels and gives time for purposeful math discussions. I intentionally choose 1 question every week that all students in the class will work on. These questions are ideally open ended math questions. An open ended math problem will have multiple solutions and a closed math problem has one solution. The students have learned the routine where I will randomly choose groups of 3-4 students from random popsicle sticks. Each group will have a chart paper to work on and 1 marker. These papers are hung out around the classroom strategically so that they will have to stand while working on the problem. When making groups students can each be given a job: writer, gallery walker, reader, etc. I only assign jobs when I feel the students need more structure to the activity and to keep all members accountable to the group. If they need support they are allowed to ask for 1 member to go on a "gallery walk" around the classroom and generate ideas from seeing how their classmates are solving the problem. This activity can take 20-30 minutes of class after your opener.
It is great to watch the kids have meaningful math discussions and work together with different strategies.Below is a video of my class in action during a stand up problem solving period:
At first this can be a very stressful activity for students and I always ensure the first 1 or 2 problems have manipulatives so that students are not working abstractly. It can be difficult for the students to work together and to explain their thinking. Oddly I find some of my stronger math students who struggle with this as they want the answer right away and do not like have multiple ways to solve the problem and having multiple answers. My students also have time at the end of lesson for reflection and discussion. I have also guided my students by doing similar questions 2 weeks in a row with different numbers as it then allows the students to be able to feel more successful. As you can see from actual groups work below there are some groups who solve with pictures or solely with numbers. It is important to encourage the idea that math can be messy and to retry questions multiple ways before coming to an answer. The photos pictured are also all closed questions. If you do closed problems you should encourage the kids to continue finding a different way to solve the question and we talk about what way is more efficient when solving the problem during our closing discussion time.
No comments:
Post a Comment