Wednesday, November 19, 2014

NaBloPoMo - Day 19 - High Praise from a Kiddo

You know those days when you just want to take a moment at the end of the day and yell, "NAILED IT!" at the top of your lungs?

In #EduRead, we've been reading The Highly Engaged Classroom, so I've been thinking even more than usual about student engagement and how I can design lessons that incorporate movement and other engagement strategies.  Yesterday afternoon, as I was putting today's lesson together, I was trying to figure out a way to use the first 20 minutes of the block period to review for a quiz that we were having today.  In the past, I've given the students time to study on their own, but this time, I decided to do something a bit more structured.

Enter in the awesomeness that is Kate Nowak.
(Someday, when I grow up, I want to be like Kate... and Sam... and Pam... and Hedge... and Julie...and Beth.. and Elizabeth... and Glenn...  and all my other amazeball MTBoS friends!)
(P.S. I did not mean to leave anyone out... but I would totally run out of room if I listed all 400 or so of you!  Please realize that I love and cherish all of you!)

See, Kate wrote this little blog post over at her blog back in 2009 called Speed Dating.  Little did I know that 5 years later, I would be finally figuring out how to use it in my classroom!

Kids came in the room today and the desks were not arranged like they were yesterday.  It cracks me up to see how much kids freak out when the desks are moved!  Instead of 8 groups of 4 desks, there were 2 long rows of 8 pairs of desks facing each other.  Since they knew they had a quiz today, the immediate question that I answered (over and over and over again) was, "Are we having a partner quiz?!?!"  ummmm, nope!

On each desk, I had a laminated card that dealt with this chapter's material.  Mostly stuff like interpreting slope, y-intercept, r-squared, using their calculator, finding residuals, etc.  (Note, if you're an AP Stat teacher and want the file, just leave me your email in the comments and I'll get it to you!).  Last year, I used the cards to do Quiz Quiz Trade, but this year, I wanted to do something different.  I gave the students 3 minutes to work the problem on their desk, check the answer on the back, and become the "expert" on that problem.  Then they exchanged cards with their partner, worked that problem, got feedback and help from the "expert", etc.  All in all, I allowed time for them to work their original problem, plus 5 more from the partners.

During 3rd hour block, I had an even number of students, so I simply observed.  At first, I was worried that maybe it wasn't working, but no biggie, it's a learning curve.  After we were done, we rearranged the room to take the quiz, and low and behold, the kids were all done with plenty of time to spare and no grumbling afterwards!  At the end of the hour, one of my students said, "Mrs. Teacher, can we do that before every quiz?  That really helped me!"  I was happy to hear the praise, but honestly I wasn't sure how much it helped.  Then 6th hour rolled around and I only had an odd number of students, so I had to join in to be a partner.  My original card was about calculating a residual, then my other 5 problems were about interpreting slope (twice), interpreting r-squared, calculating y-intercept from the formula and interpreting it, and using my calculator to find the regression equation.  I was shocked at how many things I reviewed (and reviewed well!) in that 20 minute time span!  Again, I had kiddos praising the activity as a great way to review for the quiz.  In my 17 years of teaching, I have learned that if the kids give kudos to an activity, then it's something that I want to use again!

If you haven't tried Speed Dating, I definitely encourage you to give it a shot!  This will definitely be a keeper in my play book.

Thanks Kate!

Today I'm Thankful For:
The amazeball teachers of the MTBoS.  I'm so happy that I'm part of a community that really cares about me as a person and as a professional.  We have a little (or not so little anymore) family that really wants to help everyone become a better teacher.  There is genuine concern in helping others grow as professionals, as seen through the constant sharing of resources and lesson plans on the blogs and twitter accounts of the MTBoS members.  The best part is having a network of people around the globe that truly GET me.  I struggle to "turn off" my teacher side and it's awesome to have people around me that understand that struggle.  Thank you for opening up your classroom virtually so that I can share in your joys and frustrations.  But most importantly, thank you for being you!! :) 

3 comments:

Ladsit said...

I would love to get a copy of your speed dating documents. I have been following your blog and your blog 180 and have been very inspired by the activities and the student engagement you talk about. I have used some of your activities with great success and have been exploring my own as well. at some point I would like to do interactive notebook but I'm torn because we have iPads and I'm trying to go somewhat paperless. It's hard to make both of those work simultaneously in the class. But because of you I have started my own blog 180 as a means to reflect on my own practice and record what goes on in my classroom but have not graduated to Twitter and MTBoS yet. thanks for the inspiration!

Unknown said...

Me too! We are prepping for the AP exam and am looking for ways to spice things up.

Thanks for helping us out :-)

Anonymous said...

I know this is late but I'd love a copy. I'm switching from Stats to AP Stats this year and looking for ways to get them going. Many thanks for sharing so much!