Sunday, September 18, 2016

High School Senior First Week Struggles

One of my classes, (a senior remedial class) was not going well at all this first week. The students were not engaged, they didn't want to do any problems, they were not confident, they were struggling. I was struggling. So on Friday I tried something on completely different. 

1) I started off with socrative questions

1-What does math resilience mean to you?
2-Are you a math person?
3-Can you become a math person?

I got results that are exactly as you would think. They struggled a little bit with what math resilience meant but we talked it through.  

2) I showed them a Jo Boaler movie and asked what their thoughts were on it.


3) I did estimation180, did two of them (day 211 and day 212). I asked each person for guesses too high, just right, and too low for each one. Then they talked with the group and the group came up with a guess together. That they then shared with the class.


This worked well, everyone could at least guess, I asked the groups to explain their guesses and some groups explained great ideas while others just said "I dunno, I guessed" then I showed them the answers.

4) I had them do the student desmos activity polygraph lines (guess who for lines) 


They really enjoyed this once they understood what was going on. They used great words, like slope, intersections and if I noticed that some students weren't using those words I pointed to the projection and said " If you need some examples of good questions or other questions you can look up here" after that, most students were using great math terminology. 

5)  I finished with an exit ticket, asking them about the lesson.

1-What did you like?
2-What didnt you like?
3-What would you change?




I think it was really good for them to hear that I believed in them and that this year was about math resilience and becoming confident. They enjoyed today. Now just to make next week as good.