Reflections on 2016, Part I: Teaching

Sorry I have been gone - about a month ago I decided to take a break from blogging. There were so many things coming up - our school was moving, holidays were coming up, and then when I was going to get back into it we had a death in my family. Blogging became the item that fell off my plate as I just didn’t feel up to the task.

Since then I’ve done quite a bit of reflecting. I have a two-part blog coming up: one for teaching and one on my running. Today we focus on the teaching!

I had two goals for the first half of my 2016-17 school year: Integrate cross-curricular lessons into as many of my own lessons as I could and gamify my seventh grade math classroom.

I’m really happy how well I’ve done with that first goal. Working with my co-teacher I have managed to put both language arts and social studies into my science lessons. During math we have talked about how math has evolved through time, how Romans used math, and how Rome fell because they didn’t have the number zero in their system. More directly, I tied my rates and ratios unit to maps for scaling and we were able to integrate lots of the social studies standards into the math curriculum.

Riots erupt when plebeians use exact change and see a balance due.

I also got to focus on argumentative writing in math to help language arts. Shelby introduced me to Which One Doesn't Belong at AMLE 2016. This became a focus in my class as it hit MANY of the Standards of Mathematical Practices. Students had to choose an item and write to defend why their answer was correct. From there they had to write counter-arguments as well.

Of course we also went to the math art gallery!

My second goal took on a life of its own. Students fell in love with the gamification process. They were in guilds which competed to help save Mathemagicland. Classes had individual and group awards, followed the leader board, and were rewarded with spells and items which gave advantages to their group. What I really loved is that some students found pretty wicked combinations with the game cards - ones that I didn’t see until they put them into play!

You never know if you are light or dark side until you play a game.

My gamification took a break the same time my blogging did, but the students are excited to return to Mathemagicland in January.

I had a number of other highlights throughout the first half of the school year, but my biggest was going to and presenting at the AMLE 2016 National conference in Austin, Texas. While there I met so many amazing educators. These people are not only passionate about education, but also about middle grades. It was wonderful putting a face and having a meal with people I have interacted with over twitter for the past year or more. I got to watch these people present their knowledge, and many of the ideas I saw I am using in my classrooms now! I’m proud to say that a number of them came to see me present as well (despite the fact I was in the same time slot as educational gurus such as Dru Tomlin, Dave Burgess, and Rick Wormeli.)

Apparently Rick was nervous about me. 

I’m excited to get back to school in January. For those that don’t know, we’re moving into a new building (as in newly built) in January. We have taken a few tours of the building, but have yet to see the space with amenities such as furniture, paint, or in some cases, walls.

I also promise to be back blogging and sharing some of my great and not-so-great ideas in 2017. I hope everyone is having a relaxing and recharging holiday break. Look for my running recap blog on Thursday!

Who Killed Mr. Xavier Pression?

I just got back from AMLE 2016, and what an amazing experience.  I met some amazing people, including many that I've been talking to during #MSCHAT and #TLAP talks.  I know many of you want to hear all about it, but honestly this graphic kind of explains where I am currently at:

I think I need to install some new RAM.

So for now you'll have to read about my latest activity.  

This year my 7th grade math class has been immersed in a game world.  They are in guilds named after mathematicians (Kepler, Nother, Euler, and Brahmagupta), exploring a world, and helping to bring together two nations.  They were introduced to Mr. Xavier Pression, the main diplomat brokering the truce between the nations of Gunthar and Sancrist.  Last week they received a message that Mr. Pression has gone missing.  They completed a series of quests to find him, which all four guilds did successfully.  

Unfortunately at the end of the last quest they found this on the screen at the end of the period:

It took a minute, but they eventually got the pun.

There was shock on everyone's face.  He was dead? How could that be?  They did everything they could to find him.  The next morning they walked in determined to find his killer.  

I purchased this activity from Teachers Pay Teachers.  It is a clue-based activity to have students write algebraic sentences as expressions.  In fact the whole game is set up like the boardgame Clue.  Here is the link to the product - I highly recommend it: Who Killed Mr. X. Pression

Now here is where Dave Burgess would say it is time to kick it up a notch.  They could have just come in and done the activity. I could have had the worksheets with the clues out and they could have just completed them and discovered the person, place, and thing.  However, this was a murder mystery. This was drama.  This was a crime investigation.  So instead of coming in to a worksheet laden room, they came in to this:

SO much positive feedback about the atmosphere.

Dark room, chilling music, the only thing out was the title.  By the way, students were actually working when I shot this video - that's the murmuring you hear in the background.  There was so much excitement and chatter.  They wanted to finish this assignment.  They learned that their sponsors were offering rewards including kingdom points, renown points, and new items to anyone that correctly completes the problems and solves the mystery.  They begged to get it started. 

How often can you say that has happened while teaching writing algebraic expressions?  

It's So EASY When You Put It That Way

My 6th grade math class isn't as ready to be fully entrenched in the #gamification, but we still play plenty of games.  We just don't do the leaderboard, experience, or player character aspects - there are no NPCs (Non-player characters), and they don't collect items.

I haven't ruled out doing this later in the year, however.  In fact I have penciled in a quest where the 7th graders have to rely on sixth graders for important information.

Today I introduced the concept of combining integers.  Amazingly, I did it with a game.  Shocking, I know.   Students logged on to an interactive number line maker (there are many, I used this one) and let students play around for a bit.  After they became comfortable using the page I instructed them to create a number line from -20 to 20 that counted by ones.  I then had them move their circles to zero.

Students were organized into teams and they saw that I had spread out a deck of cards on the front table.  I explained that I removed the face cards from this deck, and so that the card values of two through ten were available.

I then explained the rules of the game.  Each student would be chosen, one at a time, to pick a face card.  Black cards represented positive numbers and red cards represented negative numbers.  We reviewed that positive numbers were on the right and negative were to the left.  They quickly made the connection that if they pick a black card, the number would move right, and a red card would move them left.

The first team to positive 20 points wins the game.

Students came up one at a time, picking their team's starting card.  From there they moved their virtual number line to their starting place.  As more cards were picked students realized black cards were always good and red cards were always bad (in this game anyway. I hinted in a future game they may want the negative cards!)

What they didn't realize is they were learning how to add integers.  I specifically instructed them to not use words like "adding" and "subtracting."   Later in the week when I introduced the vocabulary and concept, they were blown away how easy adding integers was.  We talked about how this was addition (even though negative cards "subtracted" the value" because we were always adding cards to their collection.  Later in the week I gave students a check-out (formative) assignment and nearly the whole class scored 85% or higher.

When I get back from AMLE 2016, I plan on introducing subtracting integers with a similar game - students will start with cards and get to discard to get to a target number.

I'm off to Austin tomorrow for AMLE!  'll be arriving on Sunday and my session, Building Simultaneous Engagement, will be on Wednesday at 11:30 am!  Hope to see many of you there!