Catch the Spiral! 

Last May I shared my day-to-day planning spreadsheet for my grade 9 applied course. On that sheet I recorded the topic, tasks, and resources for each day of the semester. I used that as a resource for myself when teaching 1P through a spiral this semester. I found that having that sheet to go back too was super helpful and a time saver. This semester I followed that timeline except with a few tweaks here and there.

Since that sheet was so handy to have I made one similar for my MPM2D class. It was my first time spiralling that course and I wouldn’t go back to teaching through units again.

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I heavily relied on Mary Bourassa’s blog….she is amazing. She shares her day-to-day plan as posts on her blog and also shares all of her resources and handouts. Thanks so much Mary!!!

Spiralling in Academic vs. Spiralling in Applied

I struggled initially with deciding to spiral the MPM2D course because of my experience with MFM1P. I had previously taught the 1P course through activities and 3 act math problems so it was a no brainer to just mix up the order of the problems and tasks. It was an easy transition since I had all the resources. For the 2D course though, it had been a while and I had not taught it with a task/activity approach.

What I found to work best in the academic class was to learn all new ideas/topics through activities and productive struggle with some direct instruction thrown in as a consolidation. Unlike the 1P course where I switched tasks/topics daily, I stuck to a topic/idea for a few days or a week in the 2D course. Once, for example, the class was comfortable with transformations of quadratics we would switch to trigonometry for a week, then analytic geometry for a week, etc.

I felt that through spiralling and teaching through productive struggle my students were better problem solvers. They were not just waiting to be told how to solve a problem. They were always actively thinking about which ideas they had learned could apply to solve a particular problem. That confidence I saw allowed us to go more deeply into the content than ever before. We just didn’t skim the surface of the processes, algorithms, and algebra needed, we solved problems!!

If you wanted to spiral the 2D course or a similar course I thought I would share out my plan to help out. Here is my day-to-day plan with links, resources, Desmos activities, 3 Act tasks, assignments, homework, etc from my spiralled MPM2D course. (It’s not fully complete for every day but you’ll get a sense of how the class ran).

[aio_button align=”center” animation=”none” color=”blue” size=”medium” icon=”star” text=”See the plan” relationship=”dofollow” url=”https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O6xynI57e9iza6YTP9nEIu6DnbaEeL-KztV5js9xkwg/pubhtml?gid=0&single=true”]

Most files are either Smart Notebook, Apple’s Keynote, or PDF.

Get Apple’s Keynote on your Mac or on iOS.

 

 

Sneak in Solving Linear Equations — SolveMe Mobiles

As part of my day to day warm up series in my grade 9 applied class we are solving  Solve Me Mobiles. Like what VisualPatterns does for my students and learning and discovering linear relations — Solve Me Mobiles is having students solve equations without really knowing it.

Puzzles are presented with minimal distraction and with clarity. Puzzles require no explanation. Students know exactly what its asking for.

Today we started on Puzzle 12 and completed up to puzzle 14 (first 15 minutes of class).

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https://solveme.edc.org/?mobiles=-12

As students explain their strategies to the class I translate their words into small equations…. All with the goal in mind of sneaking in equation solving.
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Jill easily solved a 1-step equation on the left side…and then used pictures to help solve the 2-step equation on the right.

Onto Puzzle 13,

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https://solveme.edc.org/?mobiles=-13

After Carl explained his strategy I used the opportunity to discuss opposite operations.

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https://solveme.edc.org/?mobiles=-14

Here’s what one student wrote to solve this one…

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And we translated that answer into this one.

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All this took about 15 minutes of class time….and then we were onto something else!

Work it in! —- SolveMe Mobiles

Other Warm Up Posts:

Error Analysis & Explain Everything

IMG_3146If you have read my previous posts(here, here, and here) on Explain Everything ….you’ll know  I love it, and know that I love it because it’s so versatile!

Last year I created/used a series of warm ups or openers or minds on activities (or any other name) in my Advanced Functions class that used iPads:

  1. Daily Desmos – Matching
  2. Sorting/Matching functions to equations activities in Explain Everything
  3. Whiteboard Share – Complete a problem in Explain Everything and AirPlay to Apple TV. Discuss.
  4. Complete a new problem in Explain Everything with a video Hint built in.
  5. Video Critique – Find the Error – Error Analysis.

This last one I want to discuss here.

That opener was a way for me to check homework ….really, a way for me to check understanding of the previous day’s work.

I used Explain Everything and created a file with videos of solutions with errors in them. Instructions were built in to the file that asked students to identify if the solution had an error or not, and if an error existed they were to record themselves fixing the error.

After using this for quick checks last year I decided to make it a full peer editing lesson this year in my Function class (3U).

Students grab the pre made EE file from a shared folder in Google Drive, watch videos of solutions to the previous day’s content, decide which, or if any have errors, then fix them. After recording their new solution right in the EE file they can play their new solution for the whole class to see via Apple TV or upload the EE file to our shared Google Drive folder for peers to download, view and critique.

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Since we are always exporting as an .xpl file students will import those same files and then be able to edit/critique (record) over top of the existing work.

It was awesome to see students recognize common mistakes and yell out “nope that’s wrong!” Or “I think that one’s OK”. It was equally great to see them watch eachothers “new” solutions and critique them the same way they critiqued mine.

Definitely a type of lesson I’ll repeat, probably on next review day.

Read more awesome ways to use EE.

Kyle Pearce’s —- Explain Everything Math Learning Journey 1 & 2

MathyCathy’s —- Hands On Digital Puzzles

Ready for round 2?

Second semester is starting tomorrow and I just wanted to get down my ideas on things I will be changing and things I will be keeping…..

New things…

I’ll be using the spreadsheet I modified from @alicekeeler. Although I plan on using Kyle Pearce’s further modified version.

I have slightly modified old my assessment approach (again). I’ll share later.

Kyle and I have been Tweeting back and forth all weekend about spiralling our grade 9 applied classes. We have been teaching using an inquiry based approach (4 part math lesson) and thought that spiralling would fit right in. We’ll keep you posted. Here is my day-to-day plan by topic and task, so far .

I’ll Continue….

a ton of stuff….but here are a few

Keeping my students curious.

Strengthening the connection between algebraic representations and graphical representations using Desmos! 

Documenting my class by taking a picture/tweet for every school day.

Warm ups – To start every class we do a warm up / starter. Most of these starters are math related but for me the most important part is that the starters allow our class to “Gel”. My buddy @Regan_bio is an advocate for always saying we should show our students that we are human and remember they are human too. Take the first 5 minutes of class and be a good human with your kids…..maybe they will be more ready to do some math!

Recently Mary Bourassa has shared her great list of daily warm ups for her grade 10 applied class. Check out her warm ups.

Here’s what we have been doing…

Monday’sEstimation180 – As a class we complete one of these great challenges (10 minutes). We track our progress on Andrew’s / Michael Fenton’s provided handout.

Tuesday’s – Visual Patterns. I choose a pattern for us to determine the equation.

Wednesday’s – Pictionary – Our class is split into two teams. They take turns drawing and guessing objects, sayings, math ideas that I have picked out. Most of the time this is a non math game. (10 minutes)

Thursday’s – Throw Back Thursday — I choose a question / skill that my class has been exposed to in the past and we work on our whiteboards on this as a review question.

Friday’s – 20 Questions. — I pick something and the class has 20 yes or no questions to try and guess what I have picked. We then play a second round where the class together picks something and I try to guess. (10 minutes).

Have an exciting second semester everybody!