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Showing posts from 2016

Practice Structures: Tic Tac Toe

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Tic Tac Toe is an easy way to have students work on building fluency and is more engaging than just completing a worksheet.  You could try this activity with either of two different approaches. The first option is  to treat the game sort of like bingo.  Each player would have a board, questions are chosen one at a time.  Every student solves the problem and marks the solution on their game board if they have it.  Play would continue until one player gets 3 in a row.  I wrote about an activity like this here .  The activity was made to help students practice graphing linear inequalities. The other option would be to play the game more like Hollywood Squares.  Students take turns choosing problems to solve.  If they correctly solve the problem, they win and color in the corresponding square until they get a certain number of squares in a row.   Here is an activity that I created with this format.  The activity was designe...

#Teach180: Days 61-70

This year I've taken on the #teach180 challenge.  The challenge is to post one tweet per day showing a glimpse inside your classroom.  I'm also putting the tweets together in a biweekly blog so that I can share the resources that I'm tweeting about. Day 61:  Today was a quiz day.  I give cumulative quizzes on each fifth day of class.  However, next week I'll be skipping the cumulative quiz in favor of a benchmark test to help my students prepare for midterms. Today is another fun filled quizzing/grading day #teach180 pic.twitter.com/MfiPBgM3ph — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) December 1, 2016 Day 62:   Today in geometry, we practiced using properties of parallelograms with a chain activity.   Here is a link to the activity if you'd like to give it a try.  I wrote about this type of activity here if you want more info. In #geometrychat : properties of parallelograms with a "chain" activity (the answer to each question tells which Q to...

Practice Structures: War

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This practice structure involves solving problems with quick mental math and comparing solutions.  I have found several math war games online and played them with my students.  Whether solving 1 step equations with pre-algebra students or practicing unit circle trig values with pre-cal students, my students always love this game. This year I played this version of war to review exponent rules with my algebra 2 students. Here are the directions that I used for the exponent rules version of war. I will be playing  this  version by  Kate Nowak  soon to practice mental evaluation of logarithms.  If you have other ideas for using war in your math class, please share.  I'm especially interested in geometry and algebra activities.  

#Teach180: Days 51-60

This year I'm taking part in the #teach180 twitter challenge.  The challenge is to post one picture from your classroom each day of the school year.  I am also writing a biweekly post to share the resources that I tweet out. Day 51:  Today was a quiz day.  I give cumulative quizzes every fifth day of class.  On this particular quiz, I had quiet a few students attempt to simplify a fraction by "canceling across addition or subtraction."  I need to reinforce this again obviously.  I've tried doing simply arithmetic examples and showing how the fractions are not equivalent.  Any other ideas on how to show students that this does not work? #NeedARedStamp "can't cancel across +/-" #teach180 pic.twitter.com/KBKH9A91H5 — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) November 10, 2016 Day 52:  Today in geometry we started reviewing for midterms.  The exams are about 2 months away, but I'm starting to build in a review activity several times per wee...

Practice Structure - Slap It!

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The next practice structure that I'd like to share is Slap It!  This is a variation of Slap Jack.  This activity works best for practicing skills where there are a limited number of responses.  I've created a version for identifying the center and radius of a circle from an equation and a version for identifying the sine, cosine, and tangent of angles.  I think this would also be a good way to practice evaluating simple logarithms or specific values on the unit circle.  I'd love to hear what you would do with this idea.  Please share any variations that you try. Here are the rules for Slap Jack provided by Bicycle Cards : Object of the Game:  The goal is to win all the cards, by being first to slap each jack as it is played to the center. The Deal:  Deal cards one at a time face down, to each player until all the cards have been dealt. The hands do not have to come out even. Without looking at any of the cards, each player square...

Practice Structures - Go Fish!

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This past summer, I started writing a series of posts about practice structure that I use in my classroom.  These structures are meant to take the place of worksheets.  Worksheets can be a great opportunity to practice skills and build fluency, but they are deathly boring. Here are some of my past posts on this topic: Chains Tarsia Puzzles Board Games My Ship Sails Error Analysis Color By Number Old Maid Today I'm writing about another practice structure that I like to use, Go Fish! Go fish works well for problems that are relatively quickly solved.  I have kids deal the cards and solve the problems in their hands before starting.  Then they ask something like "Do you have the pyramid with a volume of 24 cubic centimeters?"  or "Do you have the solution 24 cubic centimeters." Like many of the other children's games that I use in my class, students really like this activity.  There is a nostalgic feeling for them and they genuinely end up ...

#Teach180: Days 41-50

This year I've taken the #teach180 twitter challenge.  The goal is to tweet one picture from your classroom each day.  I'm also blogging bi-weekly about those tweets/activities. Day 41:  Today was a quiz day.  I give cumulative quizzes on every 5th day of class as part of standards based grading/teaching/learning.  This response made me particularly happy.  I learned about CPM's Giant 1 a few weeks ago.  I used it this year to teach simplifying radical expressions and students picked up the idea faster than ever! So close. Glad I learned about the CPM great big giant 1. #teach180 #alg2chat pic.twitter.com/oHFfY2OBrI — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) October 27, 2016 Day 42:  Today in geometry we practiced triangle proofs again.  This will probably be never ending with  frequent revisits all semester.  Proofs are something that my students find 1) boring and 2) difficult.  Any one with solutions to those problems, I'm ...

#Teach180: Days 31-40

This year I've taken the #teach180 challenge.  The challenge is to tweet at least one picture from your classroom each day of class.  I'm also putting those tweets together into blog posts every other week and adding links to resources so that others can use and modify the activities if they like.  This has been a great experience so far.  It has given me the chance to reflect on my work more frequently. Day 31:  Today my algebra 2 students practiced factoring by grouping by solving a tarsia puzzle.  I wrote about tarsia puzzles here and here is a link to the activity.  You will need to download the tarsia software before opening the document. Today in #alg2chat we practiced factoring by grouping with a tarsia puzzle #teach180 pic.twitter.com/aNxDUlUunw — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) October 14, 2016 Day 32:  Algebra 2 students practiced factoring trinomials in quadratic from today though a color by number activity.  I wrote abo...

#Teach180: Days 21-30

This year I've taken the #teach180 challenge and am attempting to tweet one picture from my classroom every day.  So far this has helped to hold me accountable for planning lessons that have at least one picture worthy moment per day.  I find myself being more mindful about opportunities for student engagement.  I'm also putting these posts together so that I can share the resources that I have collected and created.  Hopefully you will find something useful here. Day 21:  Today the students practiced writing biconditionals and good definitions in geometry while playing a childhood board game.  I wrote more about using board games in class here . Today in #geometrychat we practiced biconditionals with board games #teach180 pic.twitter.com/zjvDIQPNIp — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) September 28, 2016 Day 22:  On this day, my algebra 2 students practiced distributing and factoring out greatest common factors using +Desmos .   Here is a l...

#Teach180: Days 11-20

This year I made a goal to tweet one picture from my class each day.  I'm also trying to blog bi-weekly about what is happening in my classroom.  Here are the tweets from days 11-20. Day 11:  On this day, algebra 2 students reviewed linear inequalities by playing a game of 3X3, which is similar to bingo.  There are 4 boards and a deck of cards.  In each group of four, students turn a card from the deck face up.  The card has a linear inequality.  Students look at their boards to see if they have the matching graph.  If they do, they mark that box.  The first student in the group to get 3 in a row wins.  Play can continue for second and third place.  I found the original assignment from  @MathBerts   here .  And  here is a link to the the document that I edited.  I blogged about this activity last year as well. #teach180 #alg1chat tic tac toe with linear inequalities pic.twitter.com/Gq9kRrOmDa — Je...

#teach180: The first 10 days

This year I responded to @mathequalslove 's challenge to join #teach180. This will be a challenge for me, but I'll give it a go! https://t.co/Vv0UQQSpGj — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) August 22, 2016 I have to admit that I thought I'd have more trouble remembering to take a picture every day.  In reality, I almost never take a picture during class because I'm so busy teaching and working with students.  However, I remember to take screenshots of our notes or an online activity or I remember to take a picture of student work at the end of the day. This year I'm lucky enough to have only 2 preps, CP geometry and Honors algebra 2.  I try to represent both classes equally in my #teach180 posts. Now, finding the time to blog about this has been a whole other challenge.  I'm aiming to collect my tweets and reflect on a group of them every other week.  So here we are, finished with 41 days of school.  I'm going to try to blog about 10 days at a...

#Alg2Chat How I Use Technology

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I try to use technology both to make my classroom job easier and to engage students. I use technology in my daily presentations via Doceri.  It is one of the few paid resources that I use.  I wrote about it here .  The main way that I use Doceri is as an interactive whiteboard and as a document camera in conjunction with Reflector .  I also use Doceri to create instructional (flipped style) videos for my independent station. Another resource that I like is puzzle makers.  I like to create these activities in Tarsia.   Tarsia  is a free resource that I wrote about before. The main ways that my students use technology is through my LMS of choice, Schoology and for self paced instruction via EDpuzzle .  Schoology is just the resource that I use to post assignments and resources.  EDpuzzle allows you to assign video lessons to students and receive feedback through embedded questions. I also like to use DESMOS and Gizmos .  DE...

#Alg2Chat Making Groups Work

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Group work, whether formal or informal are a very important part of learning.  This is the part of class where students really get to talk through their problem solving strategies.  Students explain their thinking and learn from each other.  Misconceptions become visible and can be addressed. I use informal grouping almost daily.  For informal groups, I typically use pairs only.  This might take the form of "Talk to your neighbor about ... " or a Kagan strategy.  My favorite Kagan strategy is Boss/Secretary.  The secretary does nothing but write what the boss tells them to write.  The boss tells the secretary how to write the solution to the assigned problem.  This is great for getting kids to show work, explain their reasoning, and practice vocabulary/notation. I use formal grouping during each rotation in my hybrid classroom.  This equates to every other instructional day.  For formal groups I prefer to assign groups of 3...

Parents' Night Plan

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Our parents' night is always a marathon.  Our contract runs from 7am until 3pm.  Historically, I have kids stay after school most days until 4pm.  Parent's night ran from 6:30-9pm in the past.  Then we have a regular 7-3 school day the following day.  This year, I'm under the impression that it will run from 6:30-8pm.  This means we will go from having 15 minute 'classes' with the parents to having 10 minute classes. Some teachers who live close to the school go home between the school day and parent's night.  This is most likely if they have young children.  Depending on whether or not my husband is traveling for business, I might need to go home and let our 3 adopted dogs out.  I prefer not to go home because it's a 30 minute drive each way.  If I can, I just pack lunch and dinner that day and spend the 2.5 hours of free time having dinner and working on the lesson plans or grading that I would have done at home that night anywa...