My Favorite Things

My favorite:

I have written before about my favorite apps to use in class - read about that here.  Explain Everything and Plickers serve such different purposes that I can't choose just one as my favorite.  They work well in tandem.  Although, next year when my freshmen have their own Surface tablet/PC, I may move away from using Plickers.  We'll see.


On a completely different note, cleaning my whiteboards before I leave work on Friday is my favorite organizational tip.  It keeps the boards cleaner throughout the week, and it helps me feel ready to start the week when I arrive Monday morning.  In fact, last week I was out of the building Thursday afternoon and Friday, and my students noticed how messy my boards were.  5 minutes or less, and a less stressful Monday? Yes, please.

Read about other Math Teacher favorites here

Exam Review Project

Ok, I will just start by saying that I love this project.  It's one of my favorite activities of the year!

So, the details:

• Our exams are coming up.  A week or so before the exam, I give my students a review packet.  For my Calculus students, I just given them practice problems.  My Algebra 1 students are given practice problems and a review of each unit we have covered.
• I assign students groups of about 3 people.  Each group is assigned 2 or 3 problems from the review.  They start by solving those problems and carefully checking their work.
• Each group uses an iPad to record a tutorial video in Educreations.  This is a free app (iPad) or website (PC/tablet).  It makes videos in the style of Khan Academy, recording students' writing on a 'whiteboard' and their voices as they explain the problem.  The videos average about 2 minutes.
• The tutorial videos are collected, checked, and posted on their class website.  Students can then view a short video to explain any problem on their review worksheet.

 Most of my students really enjoy this project.  Some are a little embarrassed to record their voices, but because we work in groups, they can contribute to the group in other ways.  They love watching their peers' videos, which gets them listening to math for an extra hour or so.  They make up intros and outros (Is that a word?), they rap the steps to solving the problem, they make a celebration page when they finish the problem.  It's great fun.

It does take some time to grade the videos, but the way I see it, my students are getting a good review, doing a project, and helping each other prepare for the exam all at the same time.  It's worth watching 100 videos.

What are your greatest Math projects?  How do you help prepare students for the exam?

I'm back...

Well...August and September sure were interesting months.  School has started wonderfully, my students are pretty great, and I have been feeling not great.

Sorry the blog was neglected!  Some days (and months), you just have to survive.

Back to regularly scheduled programming:

BINGO

My students love the idea of playing bingo.  And then we start playing, and it's actually a pretty quiet game, and I just walk around working with individual students.  But they ask, so we play.

I used to use an Excel template I downloaded somewhere.  It was great.  My only issues with it: 1) Sometimes math expressions don't work well in Excel, and 2) Every student received a different board (generated by the template), but many of the boards were really similar, so several people would win at once. 

A few weeks ago my Calculus students asked to play bingo.  So we did.  But they are cut-throat competitive, so I looked for a new Bingo card generator.

I ended up using Print-Bingo.com.  I typed up my 25 problems (finding derivatives) in Excel, copied them into the 'Word List' and printed 30 different boards for class.  Worked great and was easy for me to do!  I hope you find this resource useful!

Technology I love

My classroom is 1:1... in the sense that there is one device per teacher.  We're moving on implementing an actual 1:1 program, but we're not there yet.  However, I still use a lot of technology!  I do have access to a smart board (which I use occasionally), an iPad, and now a Surface.  I have so much to learn, but I want to let you know about some tools that I use often.

Plickers - This is a 'classroom response system' that does not require each student have a device of any sort.  It's sort of magical and my students love it.  As an overview: You need an Android or Apple smartphone or tablet (just one!).  Download the Plickers app.  Then you can add multiple choice questions to poll your class.

You assign your students a paper code.  Then students hold the code a certain way to indicate their answer.  The app uses the devices camera to 'scan' the classroom and record student responses.

Really, the concept is so unlike anything I've seen that you'll probably just want to check out their website.  Just know that it comes highly recommended!! And it's totally free!

Explain Everything - I use this app on a daily basis.  It costs a few dollars, but it is so worth it.  It's actually, amazingly, the only app I've ever paid for.

I use this app as a whiteboard, taking notes on it in class and uploading a PDF to my class website for future reference.  I know I have a smart board, but I love the ability to scale and move around the page.  I love that I can move away from the board.  The main reason I use Explain Everything is the ability to make tutorial videos easily, in my classroom or at home.  The best part is the videos are fully downloadable and entirely my property, so I don't have to rely on an app in the future.

Educreations - This app is similar to Explain Everything, except lacking some functionality that I needed.  I do still use Educreations with my students.  It is a free app which I had loaded onto our iPad cart.  Updated to add:  here's a link to a post about the project my students do with this app