Cooperative learning is a learning and teaching style that contrasts greatly with the traditional direct instruction model. In direct instruction, the teacher generally does an example for the class, then with the class, and finally the students try it on their own (I do, we do, you do). In cooperative learning it's generally the students starting the problem, working it out together, with the teacher providing closure where students present ideas as well as allow opportunities to connect the ideas and add in academic vocabulary. According to my review of the research, fewer students can access the content using direct instruction and usually forget it quickly. Cooperative learning allows for opportunities for productive struggle where students feel safe to make mistakes in a safe environment, and learn from those mistakes with explanations from their peers and teacher.
Group work takes commitment. For many teachers and myself, it is difficult at the beginning. You want to fight the urge of giving up control. This is precisely though how the students have time to try out ideas, listen to each other, and gain confidence amongst their peers and the whole class. It can and will be frustrating at times. Remember: we aren't all naturally great at group work. I had to teach my accelerated class the word "tact" after dropping my jaw at what they were saying to each other and/or how they were saying it. Students knew I was serious about talking to each other "tactfully," which is explaining or disagreeing with someone without hurting their feelings or making them feel dumb. It takes practice, and with the following suggestions of establishing study team norms and using study team support strategies, your students will improve and you will see positive results.
Each year I introduce the study team norms and reinforce them with participation quizzes (I'll expand on those later). I basically use no talking outside your team, keep the conversations on math (realistically 90% of time), asking questions not giving answers, the team is not done until everyone's done, don't work ahead, keeping desk clear of clutter, justifying your answer, asking your team before the teacher, and more. A colleague of mine, Aristotle Ou, developed the study team norms with each class. This idea was suggested to him by the Week of Inspirational Math on youcubed.org by having students finish two statements: "When working in groups I like when... and I don't like when..." The list is phenomenal with gems like "I don't like when people are off topic, give up, say the answer before you tried it, etc."
One of the most important and effective study team strategies suggested by CPM (College Preparatory Math) is the participation quiz. Basically, you put a grid on the board and/or your clipboard of the group seating arrangements. Before they start the lesson, you could highlight one of the study team norms you will be looking out for especially. Then you update the board as the lesson progresses with positive and negative quotes that are evidence of sharing ideas, critiquing ideas, and checking if teammates understand it. They love getting the instant feedback, and are not distracted by it. Sometimes they even read off the study team role cards I have at their desk a suggested question, which I am OK with.
Another strategy I've used is called red light green light. In the example linked, students worked on three situations where they had to analyze if they were proportional or not and justify with a table, a graph, and an explanation. Then a representative from their group goes up to the board, checks the answer. If they are wrong, that's a red light to stop, and discuss the mistake with their group and fix it. Then they have the green light. If they got it right the first time, green light. This sounds like a simple strategy, but students are motivated when they don't need the teacher to confirm whether they are right or not and empower students to be responsible for their own learning.
A partner and group strategy that I also like is called Rally Coach or Pairs Check. Students work on a problem in a pair. The catch is, one person is talking and explaining the problem while the other is writing and saying nothing. Then they switch roles if the writer disagrees. Then the pairs check with the pair across the table from them to see if they got the same answer. This strategy increases accountability for students that hide in a group of 4.
The final strategy I'd like to share is called Hot Potato. A group of 4 has 1 piece of paper, and each student has a different colored pencil. They then do one step of a problem, then pass the paper on to the next person, who completes a step, and so on. This strategy is effective because students actually lean in and watch what a person contributes to a step. I also can look at a paper and instantly see if everyone is contributing.
How have you gotten students to work efficiently in groups?
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Blog Post #2: Extending a Desmos Lesson to a Second Day & Productive Peer Feedback
In this second blog post I would like to outline how I extended a Desmos lesson to the next day and how I taught my students to give productive feedback on each other's group posters.
First of all, if you have never tried the activity Desmos: Marbleslides Parabolas, stop what you're doing right now and try it. I used it last year with my accelerated 8th grade math class. To give you some context, we use a model suggested by where in 6th grade students take a prealgebra readiness test (called MDTP out of UC Berkeley) and a MAC test which is 5 MARS tasks covering each of the major Common Core strands. So, it checks where they are at procedurally, as well as where they are at conceptually with their ability to explain their ideas. Then I taught them for 7th and 8th grade, but taught 3 years of math in 2 years (CC 7, CC 8, and CC Algebra). When topics overlapped we used the 8th grade lessons.
Students completed this in partnerships and for those that finished they made a screencast of successfully completing a challenge. Some great examples can be found here and here with a full blog post of instructions.
After seeing their responses to the prompts, I took a screen shot of the question as well as their responses and put them on Google slides. Then I was able to print them so they were 4 slides per page and 4 slides on the back, that folded into a pamphlet (PDF available).
Desmos allows you to make the names anonymous so no one was humiliated by their responses. Some were proud of their lack of precision and claimed which answers were there. I instructed students to first read the question prompt. Then they looked at each responses and rated them with a check if they totally agreed, a carrot (^) if it was right but incomplete, and an X if part of their statement was incorrect and you disagreed. We did this for each response, starting and stopping the class and allowing students to share their critiques of their peers responses. This provided a great opportunity for classroom discourse as well as attending to precision of academic language.
A second activity that I use is gallery walk post it note feedback. This is not a new strategy, but I was constantly frustrated with the unhelpful feedback I was seeing students give, and their peers were disappointed as well. For example, I don't want feedback to be about how colorful it is, how pretty the title is, what they didn't get to finishing, etc. So, I decided to do something about it, and take time to teach them what productive and unproductive feedback looks like. I was inspired by a tweet by Norma Gordon that included this image.
I incorporated it into a Google Slides presentation after Common Core 8th grade students had completed their posters on the Formative Assessment lesson "Solving Linear Equations in One Variable." Basically students categorized equations as being always, sometimes, or never true and making the connection to infinite, one, and no solution, respectively.
After this, students were given a post it note and given two directives: write down an aspect of the group's poster that you agree with and why. Also, write down an aspect of their poster that you disagree with and give them a suggestion that will move them to revise their work (an example from the slides is: Have you tried see if zero is a solution to the equation?)
These big ideas came from reading Dylan Wiliam's Embedded Formative Assessment book and taking an online course called Formative Assessment insights. The research says that students are more invested in their work when they are given feedback by their peers. The goal, is students realize their mistakes and fix them.
By reviewing the above slides with them, students came up with disagreeing tactfully about 2-x=x-2 being always true and they showed how substituting x=1 did not make it true.
How have you extended a Desmos lesson to the next day without computers productively? Also, please share how you have succeeded in getting students to give productive feedback to their peers.
First of all, if you have never tried the activity Desmos: Marbleslides Parabolas, stop what you're doing right now and try it. I used it last year with my accelerated 8th grade math class. To give you some context, we use a model suggested by where in 6th grade students take a prealgebra readiness test (called MDTP out of UC Berkeley) and a MAC test which is 5 MARS tasks covering each of the major Common Core strands. So, it checks where they are at procedurally, as well as where they are at conceptually with their ability to explain their ideas. Then I taught them for 7th and 8th grade, but taught 3 years of math in 2 years (CC 7, CC 8, and CC Algebra). When topics overlapped we used the 8th grade lessons.
Students completed this in partnerships and for those that finished they made a screencast of successfully completing a challenge. Some great examples can be found here and here with a full blog post of instructions.
After seeing their responses to the prompts, I took a screen shot of the question as well as their responses and put them on Google slides. Then I was able to print them so they were 4 slides per page and 4 slides on the back, that folded into a pamphlet (PDF available).
Desmos allows you to make the names anonymous so no one was humiliated by their responses. Some were proud of their lack of precision and claimed which answers were there. I instructed students to first read the question prompt. Then they looked at each responses and rated them with a check if they totally agreed, a carrot (^) if it was right but incomplete, and an X if part of their statement was incorrect and you disagreed. We did this for each response, starting and stopping the class and allowing students to share their critiques of their peers responses. This provided a great opportunity for classroom discourse as well as attending to precision of academic language.
A second activity that I use is gallery walk post it note feedback. This is not a new strategy, but I was constantly frustrated with the unhelpful feedback I was seeing students give, and their peers were disappointed as well. For example, I don't want feedback to be about how colorful it is, how pretty the title is, what they didn't get to finishing, etc. So, I decided to do something about it, and take time to teach them what productive and unproductive feedback looks like. I was inspired by a tweet by Norma Gordon that included this image.
I incorporated it into a Google Slides presentation after Common Core 8th grade students had completed their posters on the Formative Assessment lesson "Solving Linear Equations in One Variable." Basically students categorized equations as being always, sometimes, or never true and making the connection to infinite, one, and no solution, respectively.
After this, students were given a post it note and given two directives: write down an aspect of the group's poster that you agree with and why. Also, write down an aspect of their poster that you disagree with and give them a suggestion that will move them to revise their work (an example from the slides is: Have you tried see if zero is a solution to the equation?)
These big ideas came from reading Dylan Wiliam's Embedded Formative Assessment book and taking an online course called Formative Assessment insights. The research says that students are more invested in their work when they are given feedback by their peers. The goal, is students realize their mistakes and fix them.
By reviewing the above slides with them, students came up with disagreeing tactfully about 2-x=x-2 being always true and they showed how substituting x=1 did not make it true.
How have you extended a Desmos lesson to the next day without computers productively? Also, please share how you have succeeded in getting students to give productive feedback to their peers.
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