The Plan

I blogged about the template I'm using.  Most of the activities we have done have focused on a particular piece. We did two quick activities focusing on making a plan.  Before sending students outside, they had to submit their plan for peer review.  If another group could read their plan and understand what was going to be done, then I signed off on it.

Day 1: How Far?

Question:  How far is it from the first tree to the last tree (ie. point A to point B)?

Rules: You can take a pencil, paper and clipboard outside with you.  Nothing else.  

                 

Different groups were able to tell me the distance from one tree to the other using units like:

• Jose's feet


• Jasmines (not her feet, but her)


• Clipboards


• Brandon's longest stride

A few groups made adjustments to their plans once they got outside and saw how tedious it would be to try to walk a heel-to-toe straight line.  We had quite a few groups decide to measure the distance from the first tree to the second and then just multiply.  This led to a couple of really good conversations that went something like this:

Student: "Mr. Cox, we are going to measure from the first to the second then multiply by the number of spaces."

Me: "Will that work?"

"Yeah. Because the spaces are the same."

"How can you be sure? "

"Because look at them..."

"Yeah, I want them to be the same too.  That'd be really helpful, huh?"

Now they have dilemma: do they go and measure the distance between each tree or just measure the entire distance from the first to the last?  (wait, that's the same thing...which makes it a doublemma) 

Oh, you want my help?  Lemme show you how Google Earth can help you out here. 

Day 2:  How high?

Question: Come up with two different methods for finding the height of the building.  

Rules: Don't climb up there. 

Some of the methods:

• Ask Chuck.  (Turns out Chuck, our custodian, had a copy of the elevations.)


• Take a picture of Cameron next to the building and see how many Camerons to the top. 


• All kinds of crazy uses of a meter stick. 


• Count how many bricks in a foot and then count the total bricks.  (3 bricks and spaces = 1 foot.)

"Ask Chuck" allowed us to discuss the importance of trustworthy sources of information.  And Chuck is awesome.  He'd throw out all kinds of crazy numbers and see if kids would bite.

Takeaways

• A well thought out plan makes jobs easier 


• Sometimes we need to adjust our plans


• Assumptions need to be investigated


• We can use some tools in ways we've never imagined (eg. cell phone camera, Google Earth)


• Some sources aren't trustworthy

Middle School Modeling: Integrated Math/Science

or  My Apologies to the Scientists, Polya and All the Modeling Teachers Out There

I decided to go with a process rather than specific content in this class.  I know stuff is going to be on the test and we need to cover it.  But, I also know that my students will one day leave and go be anything but a scientist or a mathematician.
So I settled on asking students  to question, think, plan, model/analyze and tell people about what they did. That's it.
Everything we did this semester followed this template.  I found the following questions/directives to be helpful when turning students loose on a problem.

1. What's the problem?
I think we call this "inquiry", but I really don't know anymore.  Does it count if I give the question?

2. What do you think the answer's going to be?
Props to Dan for making a guess be an explicit part of the lesson plan.  Something I should've been doing 10 years ago but somehow didn't.

3. What smaller questions will you need to answer first?
This is tough.  Students live in circular argumentation.  I mean, c'mon kid, give me at least a spiral argument once in a while.  The name of this blog should mean I have some grasp on the importance of questions, but I've never explicitly asked students to break larger questions into smaller manageable questions nor realized how badly students need help with this.

4. What's the plan for answering the smaller questions?
Two big take away here for students:
1.  a good plan = good data = good analysis
2.  plans change

5. Go do the plan. (ie. get your data)
See #4

6. Make sense out of the data.
This was the sweet spot.  How can math be used to turn data into an answer?  Kids are getting the hang of this and it's fun to watch.

7. Answer your question. 
Cross check the answer with the guess.

8. Tell someone about it.  
I use the word "presentation" very loosely here.  This was anything from a write-up to a group presentation to an informal interview after an activity.


None of this is new.  But, for some reason, it seemed new.  The first few activities we did would focus on a particular piece (I'll blog about these--this year. Promise.).  The challenging part was to keep from over-planning.  Not because I'm that kind of teacher, but because the more I planned, the less students had to.  And, well, #4.  Oh, and time.  It takes a lot more time to have students make the plan and we have bells.

Integrated Teaching

For the past six years, our middle school science and social studies departments have kinda been given the short end of the stick.  The minutes given to math and ELA doubled at the expense of these two departments.  I don't know what the teachers were worried about, though, because only the 8th graders are tested and the test only covered, I don't know, three years worth of standards.  (And besides, Jason says teaching science in CA is easy.)
This year we decided to give some relief by reducing the minutes to math and ELA and adding a semester of integrated math/science and a semester of integrated ELA/social studies to each student's schedule.
My assignment this year is to teach one section of 7th grade math and four sections of the integrated class.  It's been tough because we are really creating this class as we go.
So far, this is what I've learned:

1. Students will do exactly what you tell them to do.  


2. Students have trouble breaking large (essential) questions down into smaller (guiding questions) questions. 


3. Students think "try harder" is a plan. 


4. 
   Polya and the guys who invented this were life coaches.   
   
   


5. Establishing protocols is essential. 


6. Scaffolding doesn't just refer to content. 


7. Changing "Why?" into "Tell me more about that" is magic. 


8. "Common knowledge" isn't so common.  


9. We need to do a better job of helping students distinguish between opinion and argument. 


10. After 16 years of teaching, I still get excited when students realize that thinking is better than memorizing. 


11. Any list worth reading stops at 10.