IMP Overland Trail - Getting the Gold

I skipped Getting the Gold when I taught Overland Trail last year. I am so sad that I did! This is such a cool activity because it has such real-world applications. In this activity the students are asked to compare the profits of 2 different ways to gather gold. While discussing this activity it is fun to bring up discussions about making business decisions.

The discussion points that are a part of this activity include:

1. Business start up costs
2. Profit
3. Breaking even
4. BONUS...This is the first activity where the starting point is negative so it is fun to watch the students say..."the starting point is negative this time!" 

**I still catch myself wanting to give the student too many hints. I am sometimes excited about how the activities bring in different aspects and I just want to point them out! HAHA!

This activity and Water Conservation are fun "wrap-up" activities that have the students once more create graphs and answer questions. I love to ask questions like:

How do you know how much profit they had on Day 7 according to the graph?

Now, how can you answer that same question using the rule we created?

Could you use a table to answer that same question? 

 

Courageous math teachers

I had the opportunity to spend 2 days last week with some incredible math educators in Alabama. The pilot that was started at Etowah High School last year has expanded through a partnership between AMSTI and It's About Time. There are math teachers throughout the state that are now piloting the full IMP Meaningful Math curriculum. While sitting there listening and learning with these teachers I was in awe. These math teachers are committed to trying something new in order to improve student achievement.

Susan Jeffers says to "feel the fear and do it anyway" and many of these teachers are doing just that. I heard many teachers grappling with the unfamiliar territory of things like assessment and assigning homework within such a different teaching format. It is exciting to be associated with teachers who are willing to get out of their comfort zone in order to try a curriculum that is time tested and has brought results over and over again.

A few years back I came to the realization that I wasn't reaching as many students as I used to and I started seeking a different way to teach math. God directed me down a path that involved coworkers, workshops, Tweets (the MTBoS especially!), and a "chance" meeting of the president of It's About Time in an elevator! Remember that the sky is purple in my world (haha!) but I really believe all these things have lined up to improve math education in the state of Alabama. I am amazed that the small pilot at one school has grown into a state-wide pilot involving many. I am thankful that AMSTI and It's About Time are providing this opportunity for the schools in our state!

AMSTI/IAT training Day 1

Lately I have not been a "person of many words." HAHA! I guess sometimes we hit a busy season and there are some things that have to be "cut" from our daily routine. So far this school year the part that has been cut out of mine has been taking time to blog and reflect. I really enjoy doing it and intend to continue...at some point.

The pilot that was started at Etowah High School last year has expanded through a partnership between AMSTI and It's About Time. This past week we had 2 days of professional development. Again, I have never seen a textbook company invest in the teachers who used their books in this way. They are truly committed to teaching teachers the best way to teach with their curriculum. Thank you to AMSTI and It's About Time for this opportunity.

One of my favorite conversations on day 1 was about "prizing the doubt." Michael Reitemeyer was the presenter for our algebra training and he had a course with a professor named Mandy Jansen who had told them that one "scholarly disposition" is to prize the doubt (Here is Michael's blog about this topic). Below I am going to paste the notes I took during that discussion.

Prize the doubt - to be comfortable with uncertainty, embrace and welcome times of uncertainty, not having everything figured out all the time, people go through "early foreclosure" just to feel certain again 

*assume that I think you are all smart 

*an alternative way to engage is to wonder...or posing thoughtful questions 

*get excited about having things in progress

I am proud to say that I spent the entire year last year dealing with the doubt and uncertainty of teaching a new curriculum (IMP Meaningful Math) that was very different than anything I had ever done before. I truly believed the research and the testimonies of other teachers but it really felt so strange and different. I can relate to the "early foreclosure" part because I remember the first few times I tried teaching my students in groups I thought it wasn't for me. I kind of thought that teachers at other schools with different types of students might be able to teach that way but it just wouldn't work in my classroom. Thankfully...in the 2013-2014 school year I had already spent the year determined to make groups work in my classroom so the transition into teaching using the IMP curriculum (2014-2015) was not quite as hard. Since I trusted the curriculum I was willing to just have the attitude that I was going to do the best I could because I believed it was best for my students. As time went on I was less nervous and really enjoyed teaching with the curriculum. After spending the day with veteran IMP teachers/trainers and other incredible math teachers throughout the state of Alabama I feel like I have so much more growing to do. I just have to take a deep breath and remember I can not completely change my teaching practices in a year. But I will "prize the doubt," remember that I am smart, and get excited about the things I have in progress!!

Other things that stood out to me during our Day 1 training are listed below:

• Wonderment wall/board - when students have good questions write them down and display them in class...then as you have ways throughout your lessons/units that you can address the question you have a visual reminder
• I need a document camera!
• Sometimes when you have a student to "share out" it would be good to sit in the desk that they vacated to have a visual cue that they are leading the learning at that moment
• Give students space to ask questions and have "divergent thinking" - the questions may not be mathematical all the time but they own the math more when they have invested
• According to Michael the #1 quality of a good teacher - listening....compassion would listen, flexibility comes from listening, connecting comes from listening 

Lastly, I was honored to be included on the panel for a brief question and answer session at the end of the day. Brian Lawler facilitated the discussion and afterwards we talked a few minutes. One of the questions during the discussion had to do with pacing and how much time to spend on the units. He said that Sherry Fraser (one of the authors of the curriculum) told them in a training one time that if the pacing guide says to spend 20 days that you should stop that unit after 20 days even if you are not done - which is mind-boggling but I intend to follow her advice! I told Brian that I took forever teaching Overland Trail last year. He said, "I know. I was following your blog and felt sorry for you students. I thought that they would never get to California!" HAHA! 

Students teach the class - IMP Mini POW About Mini Camel

Today I decided to do the Mini POW About Mini Camel activity from The Pit and the Pendulum. We decided to skip Corey Camel POW and do this one first. I had not worked through the problem myself prior to doing it with my Algebra IB class today. Please don't judge me on this. Haha! I find that I do not lead the students quite as much when I don't know the answer myself. Actually, the teacher's guide does give you the highest possible answer but doesn't tell you how to arrive there. It does give you the hint to ask the students if the camel has to go straight to the market. (In other words...can he go part of the way and put a portion of his bananas down?)

I knew that the camel had to have some "pitstops" along the way but I had not sat down myself and figured out the problem. I gave the students some manipulatives and gave them approximately 20 minutes to work. I walked around and helped them to model their ideas with the counters. When I had one of  the boys in my class tell me he figured it out I was skeptical and made him show me. He and his partner talked me through the situation (which involves the camel only traveling distances of 1 mile at a time - and is pretty cool!!) I was amazed. I often find that my students are better than me at logic problems. I told the student that he had taught me something today and he was so proud.

Typically if my students do not come up with and defend a solution I will work through the problem with the entire class. If no one had come up with a valid solution I would have done that today. Also, if I model the problem solving process with the entire class and we don't come to a solution right away I just tell the class to help me think about the problem and let's see if we can work on it again the next day. It is so exciting to me when my students do it on their own.

IMP Pit and the Pendulum Days 1-2 - The Question and Initial Experiments

On the first day of Pit I was actually issuing books. Therefore I used the WONDERFUL advice of Jim Roebuck and we listened to a Youtube video in which the entire story was read. If it were not for the fact that I needed the time to issue books anyway I probably would have gotten too impatient and skipped to the portion that read the excerpt from our algebra books.

After the story I assigned The Question where they draw a sketch of the situation and look for information in the story to answer the big question...does the story's hero really have time to carry out his escape plan? On the first day we didn't completely finish the sketches and didn't even start the discussion so we continued it on the 2nd day. We made a list of what we know from the story (especially the items that are mathematicaly relevant). They include the following:

• The ceiling is 30-40 feet high
• The pendulum swings perpendicular with his body
• The pendulum was 3 inches from his body
• He thinks he has 10-12 sweeps or vibrations (back and forth) before it will touch him
• It will take the rats one minute to eat through the rope (yuck!!)

Then we arrived at a "revised question" - How long does it take the pendulum to make 10 swings? We are also going to use the assumption that the ceiling is 30 ft high. 

Initial Experiments pg. 201

Okay...the fun part was then asking the students what we needed to know to answer this unit question. I had one boy who instantly said that we needed to know how long it took the pendulum to make one sweep. We had a class discussion about all the things that might effect this time and we narrowed it down to 3 things that we could actually test in class: weight of the bob (end of pendulum), length of pendulum (which is the height of the ceiling in the problem), and the angle of release (amplitude??) of the pendulum. I am not used to using the word amplitude for this type of problem. I keep picturing the perpencicular distance between opposite sides of a parallelogram!

Anyway...the students enjoyed building pendulums. I assigned each group one variable to test but I didn't give them any guidelines other than to test each weight (or length or angle of release) 10 times. Therefore they did 30 total trials. Also they only timed one sweep. After the experiments they decided that the angle of release didn't matter but that the other 2 variables did. Then we discussed issues that may have effected our data like not using the same angle or pendulum length when you were trying to test different weights. Or not using the same pendulum length and weight when testing angle of release. Also, some student held the pendulums in their hands and kind of helped the swing by moving their hand up and down. I look forward to doing more investigations and tying in the statistics as we go!

Students working on their sketches

P.S. - Thank you Jim Roebuck for giving us helpful hints on how to best teach this unit!

"Own your answer!"

Today I was collaborating with Mrs. New concerning the next lessons in our algebra class. We actually started discussing how much we have enjoyed starting our classes off the week with Jo Boaler's "week of math" lessons from youcubed.org. We were talking about how the activities really "set the tone" for having our students to explain their reasoning which is a staple in our IMP Meaningful Math curriculum.

Mrs New was telling me how one of her student reacted to the 4 corners activity that we did (using which one doesn't belong). She said that at one point one of her students stood in the middle of the room and said, "Why are we doing this?" Then Mrs. New told her that she is trying to teach them to "own their answers" and be able to explain their reasoning. I just loved the wording she used so I wanted to share it!

First days of school ideas - adapted from basketball camp!

My son and husband have attended a basketball camp this week. There are a couple of activities they have done in the classroom sessions that I want to adapt for the first days of my algebra classes.

First idea:
Explain a little about what makes a good group member or leader, an average group member, and a bad group member (my students sit in groups of 4)...then give the students some classroom scenarios and ask them to work in their groups to decide how the 3 types of group members would respond.

Example scenario:
The teacher puts a problem on the board and tells you it is review and you should all know how to do the problem. However, no one in your group knows how to do the problem.

Sample reaction of a good group member/leader: "Well, let's look in the book for similar problems."

Sample reaction of average group member: Raises his/her hand and waits for the teacher to come to their group.

Sample reaction of a bad group member: "She's crazy! What's for lunch today?"

I think this has a lot of potential. I want to improve my 3 names of types of group members and I want to come up with some GREAT scenarios! Also, I want to record the students' responses on chart paper and post them in my room as "rules" so I can ask them which category they fall under as we do group work throughout the year.

Second idea:
Next, I want to do a "4 corners" activity where I give the students 4 different characteristics and ask them to determine which one is the most important one for a great student to have. The 4 characteristics (or however many you want) need to all be good...therefore there is no wrong answer. After the students go to the location for the characteristic they feel is most important each group brainstorms why they feel the way they do and then selects one person to "share out" and defend their answer.

I hope these activities will help establish a culture of good communication and quality group work. Who would have thought these ideas would be learned second hand from a basketball camp?!?! If you have any ideas please email me (towens@attalla.k12.al.us) or send me a tweet (@owensteri). I will add them to this post :)

**I tweaked this idea a little but and Mrs. New and I created this presentation for the 1st day of school. Mrs. New had a great idea to use "Which one doesn't belong" activities for the 4 corners. Also, we are doing Jo Boaler's week of math activities from youcubed.org.