Using Google Forms and Sheets

If you've ever used Estimation 180, you'll notice there's a Google Form on each day where anyone in the world can input their estimate. Although it's not what I envisioned when initially designing the site, it has served a purpose. And it's free. So until I have a million dollars or someone is willing to donate a bunch of money to Estimation 180 so there can be a classroom type interface like teacher.desmos.com or Pear Deck, the Google forms will have to do for now.

My suggestion: create your own form so that you can capture rich data from your students. I believe it's so important that we capture, sort, assess, and discuss student thinking. I put together three short screencasts on:

1. Suggestions for using your own Google Form with students.
2. How to make the Google Form in video 1.
3. How to sort and use the data in the Google Sheet. 

Part 1: The finished form

• Form fields and parameters
• Daily pic in the form

Part 2: Creating and setting up the form

• Text fields and advanced settings
• Insert the image URL into the form
• Creating sentence starters
• Using a shortened URL

Part 3: Sorting the data in a Google Sheet

• Using Add-ons, specifically rowCall to separate class periods into their own sheets
• Conditional Formatting
• Finding the average (and more) of a column

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions to make the work flow more efficient.

If you're headed to CUE 2015 in Palm Springs, come check out one of my two sessions where I'll use Google Forms and Sheets to capture, sort, assess, and discuss the rich thinking and data you can receive from students.

Forms,
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@Estimation180 tweets

Why on earth would I need an additional Twitter handle (account)? I probably don't. However, it just felt right. It was time. Let me break it down:

@mr_stadel tweets will continue to be all things math and make-fun-of-Fawn.

@Estimation180 tweets will capture and share my daily estimation curiosities.

Estimation 180, the site, is a place where students and teachers can have meaningful conversations revolving around number sense. It's mainly structured around themes so teachers and students build number sense using the information from previous days or personal experiences. There's a visual introduction, a simple question, a visual payoff, and reasoning along the way. In preparing the Estimation 180 challenges for the site, many of them are brainstormed, planned, captured, and presented so they are accessible in a classroom.

As for the @Estimation180 Twitter account, I'm capturing a daily estimation curiosity, be it thoughts and/or visuals. Each day, I'll use my estimation radar to look for something I'm curious about. I'll do my best to share a visual when possible. Furthermore, I look forward to posing as many questions as 140 characters will allow. These questions can be just as important as the visual. If not more! There won't necessarily be a visual answer (payoff), but it never hurts to try. This Twitter account allows me to freely view the world in a curious way with minimal restraints.

Thanks for following me at either handle or both.
Thanks for your inspiration.
Thanks for your feedback.
Thanks for your patience as I discipline myself to look for daily estimation curiosities and share them via Twitter at @Estimation180.

Here's the first tweet:

What time of day is it? How long to go a mile? How many vehicles in a mile? How many red lights? #estimation180 pic.twitter.com/RvmwRD4A5U
— Estimation 180 (@Estimation180) January 24, 2015

@Estimation180,
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The embed code for @Estimation180 feed (if you're interested):
<a class="twitter-timeline" href="https://twitter.com/Estimation180" data-widget-id="558849375049220096">Tweets by @Estimation180</a>
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Your Life Depends On It

On the drive home tonight, I was listening to RadioLab's most recent podcast entitled, Worth. (Thanks Justin) At the 17:45 mark, one of the producers shares her story about going out on the street and asking people the question, "What is a year of life worth?"

Take a second to think about this question.
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• Would you immediately have an answer?
• Would you want to know more information before answering the question?
• What questions would you ask before finally coming up with an answer?

I totally see this as one of those questions that produces many more questions. Right?

• Would you consider the question uses Mathematical Practice 4, Model with Mathematics?

If you are curious, ask your students this same question, "What is a year of life worth?"

Just take a moment to learn from (and listen to) your students what they have to think of, share, argue, discuss, etc. I would guarantee students will raise so many questions and points. Is this a fake-world question? Can you imagine a question more specific to your content area that would spawn a rich discussion like this? I think Mathalicious does a fantastic job asking powerful questions in their lessons. Let's play a game here. Play along, won't ya?

The challenge: How can you take standards and concepts in your math class, and ask questions that almost get a similar response to the question above?

Let's call them, "Your life depends on it." questions.

Here are three images. What "Your life depends on it." question you would ask for each?

Again, what "Your life depends on it." questions would you ask? If any?
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I'm not saying mine are awesome. I simply think in order to answer the question, students would want to know more information. Ask more questions. Make guesses. Construct a model. Use math to make strong predictions, and more.

What do you think here?

Worth.
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Thank You 2014

There are many parts of 2014 for which I'm thankful. Here are some math-related ones.
*Apologies if I missed someone or something. Please remind (badger) me in the comments.

• YOU for reading this blog, giving me feedback, sharing ideas, making suggestions, attending my conference sessions, sharing stories about using tasks or Estimation 180, and being in education to support students (children and adults).
• The MTBoS for helping me continue to grow as an educator.
• TUSD for having confidence in me as a coach to support fellow math teachers.
• TPSF for allowing me to contribute to such an amazing summer learning environment. 
• DLCs and Co. for being a great bunch of tech-junkies in the name of meaningful learning
• Conferences:
• GLAMC for being wonderful people, organizing great mini-conferences, and gathering wonderful Los Angeles teachers.
• OCMC for hosting highly accessible and meaningful PD opportunities in Orange County throughout the year. 
• NCSM for allowing me to nerd out with Chamberlain and Kaplinsky in New Orleans.
• NWMC for a jam-packed conference of sessions in which multiple states and countries can partake in.
• CMC for holding the best conferences in the biz. I was truly honored to be a small part.
• Consulting:
• PYLUSD, Rockwood, and CUSD: thank you all for your confidence and willingness to have me work with your math teachers. I learned a great deal!
• Christopher Danielson for sending me a wonderful estimation book (still reading).
• Tracy Zagar for including some Estimation 180 in her upcoming book.
• Motion Math for making wonderful-amazing-delightful math apps for my son and me to enjoy together.
• Eric Milou, Gwen Zimmerman, Robert Kaplinsky and Dan Meyer for putting up with me during our NCSM 3-Act project and allowing me to learn a great deal from you all. 
• Hannah for being the best colleague last school year.
• My niece for designing the Estimation 180 logo and artwork.
• Johnny and SPEYSYDE for helping me get my Estimation 180 shirts printed.
• Steve Leinwand for the continued inspiration and top-notch CCSS elevator speech about MP3.
• The Math Forum and the Encompass crew for the continued opportunities to connect, collaborate, and create in the name of problem-solving.
• CueThink for creating a digital problem-solving app to support students and teachers.
• Global Math Department for allowing me to frequently write a short blurb in their newsletter.
• Kaplinsky for being a great (math) friend and coercing teachers to ask for sticky note autographs.
• Fawn for still making fun of me.
• My students for teaching me.
• My family for your love and support that encompasses everything.

Thank you,

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