Musings from Mrs. Galvan

My algebra and geometry students have been creating digital portfolios (using blogger) for the last 4 school years. Summer 2013, spurred on by my school's upcoming 1:1 laptop program, I attended CUE Rockstar conference. While there, I had time to think about how I might have my students use their laptops in class. I wanted them to be able to look at virtual manipulatives , graph things quickly and interactively using desmos, create constructions using geogebra, use online formative assessment tools like socrative and generally be able to use the internet as a tool to enrich their learning. All of these enhance learning, but I was also looking for a way to build in reflection and creativity into class also. After all, as Dewey said  “we do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience.” My theory was that blogger would be the house for my students' reflections.  Via the blog they have... ... Reflected on in class problem based learning tasks ...

Way back on March 12, I started what I thought would be a 3 Act with blog summary activi ty to dig deeper into vertical motion in my Algebra classes. They watched a video of the Human Cannonball, we gathered questions and I gave them more information. I will definitely do this again next year, but, as I often discover even though I have been teaching for an eternity, well 15 school years now, is that things always take longer than I plan for. Converting units and being okay with pressing the sine button on the calculator required time, individual attention and counseling. After that hurdle, most students were able to answer two questions (What is his maximum height and what is the height of the net) and summarize their results on their blogs. Check out what Lucas published . Entirely valid way to collect time data. Question gathering ahead of Act 2

My 9th grade Geometry students are sitting in front of me, taking their assessment on right triangle trigonometry. I am confident that they are well prepared for the assessment and I feel satisfied because the work they did to learn the material was both rigorous, engaging and fun. My colleague, Mike, and I have for several years spent most of the 2nd semester running flipped classrooms. I tried a flipped unit for the first time back in 2009. Students watch a video, made by myself and colleague Garrett, that teaches them a new concept. They take notes on a handout and in theory, pause the video from time to time to do practice problems to self assess. I liked it because during class, students could get immediate feedback from their classmates or myself on tough problems. What it lacked was meaningful whole class discussions as students worked at different paces. Also, it was boring. This was my fault. I just handed them problem sets and walked around. I didn't take the opportun...

Using this video for a trajectory lesson in my algebra 1 class today and tomorrow as a 3 Act. Start video at 1 minute in. The shot happens around 1:55. Pause the video after the jump, then resume for Act 3. See below video for Act 2 Image. Does anyone know how I can edit a video found online? TIA. :) KMSP-TV

After 8 years teaching Geometry from this textbook , I finally made the lesson on Space Diagonals more interesting than saying: Do Pythag twice. Sure  I always do the Space Diagonal Dance, to much laughter, but the PrBL model wins. No, I don't have a video of the dance (that I know of). I happened to have brought donuts for a meeting so I had this box. I made up a story told them the legend of the Prince who made his butler leave the castle on a quest to find a delicious bread stick, the crunchy kind. The Prince told his butler that he was not to return until he found the longest bread stick that would fit in the box. I gave them the box dimensions, put them into groups and handed out the white boards. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. They discussed and argued for about 7 minutes before coming up with the solution. I walked around and monitored, giving feedback and hints. A group presented their approach before starting independent practice, er a worksheet, ...

Have I ever mentioned that I used to also teach history? It has been since 2008, and I have always also taught math, but in my former life as high school history teacher, my classes played a variety of games aimed at learning vocabulary. They don't always translate well to math, but this one does, so long as the problems are short and can be done without paper. Step 1: Make a card set with the same number of cards as students (in classes with varying numbers of kids, some kids will hold two cards). On each card, write a question: Who has _____? Write the answer on another card: I have ____! Be sure to put a star on card #1. The last answer goes on card #1. Step 2: Explain the game to the students. Make them stand up when it is their turn. The first time will be slow. Not all students will be paying attention. There will be yelling... Assure them that it is normal for classes to not not quite understand how the game works the first time. Step 3: After 1 round, collect...

Mrs. Desman Lesson Idea

Since I started looking beyond the textbook for problem solving opportunities for my students, I am continually reminded how much I used to over teach and over model. My traditional daily class plan had been: Review homework, new lesson, guided practice, homework. Repeat. Quiz. I know that I had been leading them too much because now that I am giving them richer tasks, I am surprised by how difficult they find some of them. Fourteen years in the classroom and my judgement of the degree of challenge in a problem still needs calibrating. For example, recently we did the task Viewmongus from Mathalicious to explore applications of Pythagorean theorem in Geometry. Given the diagonal length and the aspect ratio, calculate the dimensions of the TV. I looked at the materials before class and judged it a 10 minute problem. I budgeted 15 and reasoned that they could blog it for homework. I was surprised (and happy) to see my students struggling to use the 16:9 ratio to find the dimensions ...

I am still playing catch up on the blog! In January we had a great faculty meeting, (not a joke, from time to time we actually have informative faculty meetings that forward our professional development). A colleague, who attended a conference given by Research for Better Teaching , reminded us of the importance of "framing the learning" by providing a road map of the daily lesson for our students each class. The four parts of the lesson frame are to state the learning objective, write an agenda of activites, link the objective to a larger goal and state the criteria for success. We were asked to bring a sample lesson plan to share at the meeting. I felt proud because I had clearly stated the objective in SWBAT form on my lesson plan and I always  write an agenda on the board in class. Two of the other strategies hit home though. While I spend a lot of time discussing our goals (especially since embracing Standards Based Grading), I don't always link individual goals ...

As mentioned, I have gotten behind on blogging. Three weeks ago in Geometry, we were discussing similar triangles. Usually when I teach this, I am in a hurry to get to right triangles. I would make the excuse that they did a lot of ratios in pre-algebra, so let's just do similar triangle proofs and get to trig already! This year I did a few things that made class a lot more engaging. #joyful 1. As mentioned before , I had kids do problem solving in groups using white boards. Five Triangles is a great source of problems to use to mix it up. 2. The Blob - I filed Fawn's golf problem remix away when I first read it last year and I am SO glad that I used it this year. I followed her script, instructing them to draw a blob somewhere in the rectangle, a point H on one side and a point B on the other. I collected them and made copies. The next day I gave them the copy and gave them the challenge. Jonathon's wasn't possible with three triangles... I let him dra...

After two days of unbloggable lessons in algebra (lecture and practice with negative exponents), we finally had the skills to play a game. After our routine review of last night's homework, students took a skill quiz. They are getting used to the frequent assessments required by the shift to Standards Based Grading (though I did overhear, "Didn't we take an LTC yesterday ?"). By the way, I purchased a folder holder over winter break, which highly enhanced my reassessment system. Anyways, back to today. The kids love playing color wars . Once they are in groups, all I do is give problems on the document camera and run around the room. Class almost runs itself. I love the high energy, engaged kiddos, running around the classroom, good competitiveness, and overhearing kids discussing how to do math problems. I changed the roles a bit this time around. 

I have used this prompt for my kiddos' math blogs for two whole years and I really like it. They are to research a create their own RTD system word problem. This works really well as a partner project in which they edit a google slides file together. We are a 1:1 laptop school, so I am able to give them bits of time during class for partners to collaborate, though I do start the assignment with nearly an entire class period dedicated to researching and writing. Learning to work backwards to write a math problem is challenging for my students. During day 1 I am circulating, hovering really, questioning their work before they publish. Samples : Carly      Brigid      Bryce Here is the prompt: For this Blog post, you and a partner will research and create an RTD problem that requires a system to solve. You may choose to do a problem with wind/current speed, round-trip, total distance or one person catching up with the other. Look ...

I have had "make fun review game for algebra kiddos" on my to do list all week. I have a few review games in my back pocket thanks to the Mtbos ( White-board stamp gam e , Solve-crumple-toss ,  zombie grudge , speed-dating ), but I wanted something new. In usual fashion, I procrastinated. I came in this morning thinking that we would play zombie grudge or have a color war , but instead, inspired by Rockstar Math Teacher , I used Socrative . In 15 minutes, I had a worksheet transformed into a Socrative quiz. In class, they used white boards and we did the space race option which randomly teams up the students. As usual, the winning team got to raid my prize barrel. I was genuinely surprised by much fun the students had with this activity. Who knew that watching your rocket ship inch its way across the screen could be so motivating? If you want a socrative that reviews solving systems, including special cases and word problems, import with this code: SOC-14218779

There are many lessons in Algebra that in typical math teacher fashion, I just love . Wind-Current rate-time-distance problems are one of them for me. Usually I present a few examples and tell a (true) story of how I have used this knowledge outside of my math teacher role... in my real life... out in the REAL WORLD! They ooh and ahh. They question that I have a real life. *sigh* They listen attentively to my telling of how on two separate occasions I have won the Half-way to Hawaii game. I don't know which airlines play and which do not, but every time I have flown to Hawaii, they play the game of finding when the plane will be half-way there. The captain gives you the rate of the plane, the distance, the time the plane took off and the rate of any tail or head wind. Of course, there is an element of chance involved in the game. Speeds aren't constant the entire flight, but I use my algebra skills to make my educated guess. I have been lucky to win twice. My students are e...

Last Wednesday was fun thanks to an early morning lesson reboot. Usually in Geometry I give the following directions on a review day:  "Do these review problems with a partner and ask for help as needed."   Instead, I copied the same problems on separate papers to quickly make a game of Solve Crumple Toss (it went well in Algebra ; again thank you to Kate  for the idea). The goal, reviewing key topics from chapter 4 (diagram-less proofs, detour proofs, perpendicular bisectors, coordinate geometry, oh my!), was the same. The execution made for a much more engaging, dare I say fun, class. Today's reboot was not last minute (go me!), because earlier this month I saw Julie's blog post about Jessica's Dance-Dance-Transversal idea. Then Justin tweeted that Kate posted the power point and I was set! I love the Mtbos! Anywho, the kiddos had fun dancing and everyone knows their angle relationships. I am no longer feeling bad about my geometry ...

I can't thank Kate enough for sharing Solve-Crumple-Toss . It was a hit last year with square root equations and again this year with writing linear equations. What I love especially is how determined they are to get the answers accurate so they can take a shot.This is a great way to review for a test and have class be fun. #joy I also heard, "Hey Mrs. Galvan, why do you have so many '90s songs about basketball ?" Link to handout - Copy each page on a different color and cut apart.

Geometry continues to be the class that isn't fun. Don't get me wrong, I have a great rapport with my students and we laugh a lot in class. I tell stories. We have lots of inside jokes. I also try to mind their social-emotional wellness. We discuss mantras that promote growth mindsets and I lead them in mindful meditations and stretching from time to time. Oh, and they get to create and reflect via their math blogs . Still, not a lot of games or prizes. No Zombie Grudge . Today was enhanced a bit: they got out of their seats to do Andrew's Transversals, Tape and Stickies . I am looking forward to trying Jessica's Dance, Dance, Transversal the week before Thanksgiving. Not to be repetitive, but 135 forty minute class sessions each year to teach a rigorous, proof based course AND have fun is a challenge... but I can fit it in. Engaging lessons are not optional just because my students are highly motivated and have decent attention spans. Wh...

Yesterday's algebra class was great. We definitely fulfilled my goal of having more fun in math class. The night before last I had read an article linking curiosity with increased learning and engagement. Then yesterday's class illustrated that point perfectly. We are finishing up our unit on graphing linear equations. There are many resources available online to support this concept, so many that it was very difficult to choose. I used Dan's stacking cups . Me being me, I made a handout . I was so impressed by what seems like such a simple idea... a stack of cups... holds rigorous concepts that my students were determined to figure out. While they got that the lip height was the slope pretty easily, they wrestled with the y intercept. I resisted the urge to tell them and instead told them to measure total height for one cup, then two cups to be sure their rule worked. They were engaged for the entire class period. I heard kids debating the concepts. The curios...

Today was my first Algebra class of the new year that was fun. I guess I equate fun with busy. It was a packed 40 minutes! One reason it was fun: we played the Whiteboard-Stamp game  (Thank you Lisa )...  ...and they got to work on their digital portfolios. Currently they are creating one variable word problems with a partner. Next week, I will assign other students to solve the problems created by their classmates.  Here is the prompt: With your partner, create a word problem with three subjects that is solvable with one variable. See pages 21 -23 of your packet for inspiration.  Be sure to solve it a few times before posting it! When you are both confident that your problem works, each of you will post it to your blog. 1. Creative Title 2. Problem that works (not too easy and not impossible) 3. An image 4. a link to your partner's blog Oh and the day was made EVEN better because our GAFE admin unlocked the chrome web store f...

Today's task - Surface Area. We had more fun by using Mr. Stadel's lesson - File Cabinet . They had a post it to measure, rulers, paper and a calculator. They started by making a guess. Some of them got pretty close (960!) My students are still not used to doing these types of tasks... their questions going into a 3 act tasks hint to a bit of insecurity in being asked to think outside the box, or outside the filing cabinet. Still we got to the key question: How many Post-Its does it take to cover the filing cabinet? Other questions: "What did he spend on post its to do this?" "How long did this take him?" "Are you going to tell us how many squares inches is in a post it?" "Does he have a life?" (Sorry Mr. Stadel) Their answer: 936 "Does this mean if we take one post it and cut it up, it would cover all the spots he left blank?" :)