To say our first six week's grading period flew by, is an understatement! September has been filled with the many firsts: first day of school, major projects and assessments, school dance, Homecoming spirit week and our first football game. Needless to say, everyone has been full of enthusiasm and lots of smiles!
In 7th grade math, we've wrapped up our first unit, which covered similar figures. We have spent the past week working with the WON method. The "WON" method provides some much needed structure for our learners as we deepen our knowledge of proportionality! Because of their prior experiences with ratio tables, we introduced similar drawings with ratio tables. Quickly, learners were challenged with how to find the solution to a not so "obvious" answer using a ratio table and that's when the WON method was introduced!
Of course, with the addition of WON, there was some hesitation and confusion, but we persevered and now it's become a go to method for many! In fact, one girl asked, "Do we have to use ratio tables? I love using the WON method!" Music to my ears as she feels confident in using a new method and loves justifying her solutions with WON.
In 6th PAP math, we've just finished learning about area! I loved hearing how proud the learners of Room 103 were of themselves, as they worked on both their Google Slides area review and their Flipgrid assignment.
A few days before our assessment, students were given the task of using Flipgrid to justify their solution to a problem that involved working backwards to find a missing dimension. The rubric was given, which sparked amazing thinking as my inbox began to fill up with notifications of students' video submissions.
Responding back to my learners' videos
One of the most amazing parts of Flipgrid, is the immediate feedback that I received! It was 9:00 PM, as I was watching and responding to our classmates, when I quickly realized majority of my learners were missing a part of the area formula for a triangle. Forgetting to divide by two is what sets the formula of a triangle apart from the area of a quadrilateral, which our learners could explain in class. However, after some time had passed between our classroom experience and their recording, we forgot. After a few videos, I immediately created a warmup that allowed for more practice and discussion over the area of triangles! I also added this into our Google Slides review which we began the following day in class.
At the end of every unit, I ask for feedback from my learners to gauge how they feel as a learner in our classroom, the different strategies we implemented during instruction, as well as reflecting on each other's behavior. Sure some of the data is hard to swallow, but it's also very eye opening and reminds me why I am a teacher.
Despite the numerous days of torrential downpours, power outages and puddles everywhere, the learners of Room 103 have been busy soaking up new knowledge as we embark on our new curriculum. Our first three weeks together have created opportunities where learners are in charge of their learning, engaging with their peers as they experience rich learning opportunities, enhanced with technology....To say we've been busy thinking and learning is an understatement!
Majority of our sixth grade lessons have utilized Desmos, which has sparked numerous discussions as we decompose and rearrange areas. Learners loved having anonymous names of famous mathematicians! Add in my excitement of how, from the teacher view, I can see how each mathematician answered the question.
One of the features of Desmos that I love is being able to see how learners are thinking and justifying their solutions. Both of these are examples of how learners were decomposing and rearranging areas into familiar polygons in order to find the total area in a figure.
As a checkpoint, learners were given an exit ticket where they were asked to determine the area of a given figure. To make it more interactive, we used Flipgrid! If you've never used Flipgrid, I definitely recommend it. Being able to verbally justify their solution allowed our learners to approach the given problem in a different manner, while being creative!
Learners created their own Flipgrid and then watched 3 other videos, leaving meaningful feedback. What I loved seeing, as I watched each child's Flipgrid reflection, was how some used tangrams, like we had in class, some made references to Desmos and even showed it in their video, while others acted as the teacher and shared their thinking with the audience members of Room 103! I can say by the profiles created that everyone enjoyed themselves as they used Flipgrid for the first time.
In 7th grade, we have been focusing on scaled copies (similar figures). From using patty paper to trace figures and using protractors to measure angles, learners proved that corresponding angles in scaled copies are congruent!
Google Forms were a lifesaver this week with an unexpected absence! If I could give advice to a new teacher, it would be to not leave new material for a substitute teacher to teach. Rather leave a review of some sort. Because we are a 1:1 campus, I immediately thought of creating a couple of digital resources to review similar figures. Below is a sample of the Google Form where I embedded a video from Youtube and then asked 10 follow up questions. Upon my arrival back to campus, my learners were having meaningful discussions over the definitions of similar and congruent.
Another small detail that makes these Google Forms so helpful is the Flubaroo Google extension. I simply create a key and then the extension grades the assignment! I love the reports that our created after running Flubaroo, so I know immediately which questions need reteaching, as well as which kids need small group reteaching. Flubaroo has truly helped not having piles of papers to grade and allows for immediate feedback!
Our week ended with looking at a basketball court and determining the actual measurements. Sure it's the beginning of college football season, but when you share your classroom with the basketball coach, you embrace the love of the game! Our learners were introduced to the WON *Words Original New)method. Of course there was some grumbling and resistance as we began, yet learners quickly jumped on board when they began to see the success that comes with having a method that helps organize our thinking.
After meeting and reflecting over our first PBL, "Becoming a Financially Responsible Citizen," our 7th grade team began brainstorming and creating a PBL, where learners would be given the challenge of creating a new 3D candy and wrapper.
Google Forms came to our rescue once again as we determined our design teams! Learners were asked about their most favorite and least favorite types of candy, which of course sparked interest in why we needed this data. Soon groups were created and the challenge was accepted!
Based on our reflection of the previous PBL, we decided that we needed to make a few changes on how we kicked off! On day 1, we gave each learner the entry document, which was a letter from the CEO of Hershey's, Volume & Surface Area Checkpoint of what the project entailed as well as a copy of our Unpacking the Standards document.
As students read through the letter, they annotated the documents and began to create their Knows & Needs to Know Charts. Because we included more details about what was going to be required as far as designing and creating both a 3D model of their new candy and wrapper, writing a persuasive letter, they had specific questions for our class charts!
After creating our Knows and Needs to Know, we dove into discovering the volumes of various 3-dimensional figures. The twist came when we used composite figures in our Willy Wonka workstations. We created 25 scenarios and included QR codes, so learners could quickly check their work to see if they were on the path of success!
During this learning opportunity, students had to determine the type of 3D figure and write the correct formula. We focused on triangular prisms, pyramids and threw in a few challenge problems with spheres and cones!
One of the standards that our PAP students had to cover was determining the relationship between the volume of a cone and a prism. This is one of my favorite lessons to teach during this unit! Learners used Flipgrid to explain how they determined the relationship between the volume of the cone and prism.
As we finished our Willy Wonka Workstations, students began to create their 3D models, using Tinkercad. Tinkercad is a web-based program that allows you to create 3D models and eventually print on a 3D printer.
One of our goals was to be intentional with allowing time for students to use the program prior to when we actually needed it in class. During the month of February, each 7th grade teacher posted the directions on how to use Tinkercad, as well as digital files for additional resources.
To ensure we knew what our Falcons would be experiencing, we also created items in Tinkercad and then used our 3D Poly Printer to create objects. It's so important to understand where our learners are and how it feels to be in their shoes, during a new learning opportunity!
Students used the days leading up to spring break to create their 3D candy models and loved being able to actually print it on our 3D printers! Of course we had a few curve balls thrown at as as far as the dimensions but we all figured it out and models were created.
After spring break, it was time for our learners to focus on designing their wrapper for their new candy. In order to help them learn about all of the details that go into packaging, we reached out to a local company Virtual Packaging. Jordan Patterson, Director of Admissions, and Tara, the VP of Sales, came and spoke with our Falcons. Jordan and Tara did a great job on keeping our kids engaged as they shared graphs about how one's age determines the type of candy they prefer. Did you know that those older than 35 prefer chocolate over sour? It's not too shocking considering how much our middle schoolers love sour candy! Our Falcons also learned about various packaging materials that are used. Information learned from this presentation was used in several students persuasive letters and commercials!
To build on our experience of Willy Wonka's candy factory, we created more workstations that focused on the wrappers of Willy Wonka's candy products, in another gallery walk! Because of the confidence and success of our Falcons, we were able to move faster through this activity which allowed for critical friends to be implemented (another goal from our last PBL!)
We reached out to our speech teacher and asked if her 8th graders would want to serve as critical friends and offer advice on our Falcons' presentations.
Another new idea that we implemented was having our Falcons write persuasive letters. We reached out to our 7th grade ELA teachers, who jumped on board with helping us! This was a huge learning opportunity for everyone as this was the first cross curricular lesson we had done, as well as making it digital. The kids felt extremely "grown up" and loved being able to tell the judges why their candy should be chosen!
