Principles to Actions Book Club [phases]

Inspired by Kaneka Turner's #ShadowCon16 talk, I decided to form a Principles to Actions book club during the summer of 2016. Sorry, the club will be comprised of teachers in my district. I'm excited at how it is shaping up in the past week. I broke it into three planning phases before we actually start reading NCTM's Principles to Actions. I recommend you start your own. Here's why:

Phase 1:
I created a goal for the book club (inspired straight from Principles to Actions):

Collaborate with other TUSD teachers to strengthen our math teaching practice and improve the learning of mathematics by engaging students in mathematical thinking, reasoning, and sense making.

I reached out to a small group of (K-12) math teachers and coaches in my district to generate interest.
10 teachers replied with interest. We're ready for Phase 2.

Phase 2:
I will tap into the wisdom of these 10 teachers to help structure:

• HOW we will accomplish our goal.
• WHAT tools we will use to accomplish our goal.

I'm confident these 10 teachers will help structure how we discuss the book, how much time we spend as a book club, how we will collaborate (virtually or in person), etc. I also know these teachers will help suggest what tools we might use to help assist in the virtual collaboration. For example, Google Docs, Google Classroom, Padlet, etc. 

I asked them for input via Google Forms. Here are the questions I asked.

Once I hear back from this small group, I will move forward in structuring the PtA book club along with setting up the digital tools and spaces that make the most sense. Phase 3 is next...

Phase 3:

I plan to do a district-wide invite to the Principles to Actions book club so anyone who teaches math is invited. More importantly, I am counting on the small group of 10 teachers to reach out to other colleagues at their site and throughout the district to personally invite teachers to the Principles to Actions book club. I'm confident their reach and influence will make the collaboration more meaningful and fun for all invloved.

I've never done something like this before, but I'm excited because I am confident in the 10 teachers who have already expressed interest. I encourage you to find something mathy you can invite others to be a part in. Maybe it's a Principles to Actions book club. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or tips!

PtA,

1020

Open Middle and Google Docs

A few weeks ago Kassie, a teacher I support, came up with a great idea. The idea was inspired by one of our other Digital Learning Coaches, Michelle, who introduced Kassie to hyperdocs.

Idea: Incorporate Open Middle problems with Google Docs.

Here's how it went...
Kassie had her students work in eight groups. This happens often in her class. She pushed out one Google Doc to the entire class so every student has editing rights. However, you just need one group member to make edits for their group.

Each group was working on the following open middle tasks:
Use the integers from 0 through 9 only once to create an equation with:
Day 1: One solution
Day 2: No solution
Day 3: Infinite solutions

First, students work on their desks with whiteboard markers, discussing with their group members. Isn't that lovely!

Second, students enter their equation into their respective cell inside the Google Doc table.

Third, each group needs to test the equations that other groups submitted. Keep in mind, that each group could not submit an equation identical to another group. Once they worked on other equations, they entered if they agreed or disagreed with other groups.

I experienced Day 1 and it was awesome to see the collaboration and community of learning throughout the room. When debriefing with Kassie about Day 3, she told me students realized an equation with infinite solutions couldn't be done if they use the numbers 0 through 9 only once. That's awesome! Good work kiddos! She ended up allowing them to use a number more than once. I'm wondering how it might change if we allowed them to use the numbers 1-10 (only once).

Since our middle school students work on iPads, a large Google Doc table like the one above might not let the math breathe on a smaller screen. I adapted her Google Doc to look more like this as a template:

• I split the eight groups into two tables on two separate pages.
• Each group still enters their answer into their respective highlighter-yellow cell.
• Each group has a vertical column so they work downward when entering agree/disagree

I inserted this Open Middle question as a placeholder above the table inside the template.

Make your own copy of the template by clicking here. 

This is definitely a way for students to create their own answers which turn into questions their classmates can use to practice procedures and challenge their understanding of specific math concepts. It is student focused. It's a great way for students to generate questions that both the teacher and students can use. It makes math a social experience through the use of technology. All of the student answers are housed in one location.

Open Middle,
1224

P.S.
We have Google Classroom in our district which makes it 200 (student) times easier to push things like this out to students. If you don't have Google Classroom, there are other ways to get this out to your students' devices. If you need ideas, hit me up in the comments or on Twitter.

Classroom Clock Questions

I'm curious about the precious classroom time we [math] teachers have with students.
Enlighten me.

Please take 1 minute to fill out this form as I prepare for an upcoming Ignite talk at NCTM.

Thanks,
Andrew

My Tech Tools [Kahoot!]

Here is a tool that does not meet my criteria:
Kahoot!
• Capture
Anyone can log in. There's no Google login like Pear Deck, Desmos, or Google Forms. The teacher must rely on students honorably entering their name. There are four design features that could possibly hinder the accuracy at which a teacher is able to capture student thinking:

• multiple choice
• timed questions
• points driven
• selecting answers in the form of different colored shapes

Multiple choice
Multiple choice will never 100% accurately capture what a student is thinking because the student could get it correct by guessing or for the wrong reason. This can be referred to as false-positives.

Timed questions
By default, questions are timed in order to fall in line with the gaming feel of Kahoot! Therefore, students with the best recall will typically score higher. This option can be turned off. You have 15 seconds. HURRY!!!!!!
Points driven
Kahoot! could be considered a gamified tool that checks for understanding. One component of games could be points. Kahoot! rewards students who answer accurately and more quickly than their peers with more points. There's a leaderboard.

• Different colored backgrounds and shapes as answers
This feature requires additional decoding by a student who might also struggle with the math being questioned. Not being a quick processor, I have struggled with this feature a handful of times. I think the use of different colors is a great design feature. I would suggest Kahoot! ditch the white polygons or give the teacher the option to turn them off.

• Sort
There is no real-time sorting of student thinking. If a teacher would like to see how specific students answered questions, they have to wait until the session is finished and look at the data on a spreadsheet. Granted, this data is better than nothing. After having teacher dashboards available in other tech tools like Pear Deck and Desmos, I need the data NOW! Again, after the students go home is better than nothing. Because answers are multiple choice, the results from a question are displayed as bar graphs. Unfortunately, the teacher cannot click on a bar graph to see which students picked that answer.

• Assess
Multiple choice questions can always present a teacher with false positives as I mentioned above. The bar graph could be generally informative to me as a teacher. I do appreciate the option that a teacher could export the results of the game after the session has ended. This could help inform their instruction for the next day if they decide to use Kahoot! as an exit slip.

• Discuss
After students have answered a question and the bar graphs are displayed, the teacher does have the option to click on the image and discuss the mathematics. However, I wouldn't feel that well informed as to what students were thinking or the reasoning behind their choices, especially if they were being timed and the timer caused them to quickly guess.

Kahoot! conclusion:
I can't help but feel like a game-show host when I've run Kahoot sessions. No thanks. I'm a teacher, not a game-show host. You might be wondering why I don't have a wish list for Kahoot! I have found other tools that can do the same exact thing without students being timed, earning points, or having to additionally process colors and shapes when answering. If you're a fan of Kahoot!, then I welcome arguments that might convince me to reconsider the tool. However, if you'd like to present arguments, I request you consider the tech tool Quizalize. It has a gaming feel to it, but just might be more informative to you, the teacher.

Learn more about Kahoot! here.
Learn more about Quizalize here.

More from the My Tech Tools Series:

• My Criteria
• Pear Deck
• Desmos
• Google Forms

Kahoot,

519

My Tech Tools [Google Forms]

Google Forms
• Capture
I like using Google Forms to quickly capture student estimates and their thinking behind it. Since my district is a Google district and each student has a Google account, I can set up the form to capture their student ID. More importantly, I can capture quick estimates at the intro of an Estimation 180 challenge or a 3-Act task with the goal to quickly sort and assess the student thinking after seeing the first act. Here's an example of a form I would typically send students. Click here to have your own copy.

• Sort
The input from students feeds into a Google Sheet and I can quickly sort the student thinking. For example, I can sort the numerical columns (specifically "Estimate") from least to greatest and vice versa. I can have students enter their name when filling out the form, but I can hide the "name" column when displaying the results to the class.

Bonus sorting: Install the add-on called "rowCall" and give the form to multiple class periods. The add-on rowCall will create a separate sheet for each class period at the bottom of your file. Learn more here.

• Assess
I've learned to use Google Forms to ask students the information they think might be useful to know in Act 2. I can use "Conditional Formatting" to fill a cell with a specific color when students enter trigger words. For example, when students do the File Cabinet task, I set the conditional formatting for words such as length, width, dimension, height, sticky, face, etc. I can see the informal (or formal) language) students provide and help connect the math to their terminology before we work at formalizing it together.

• Discuss
I love the wisdom of crowds during a 3-Act task and gathering as much information as possible. We can take the "Estimate" column and find the average number of stickies the class thinks it will take for me to cover the file cabinet. There have been numerous times when our class average is astoundingly close. Using conditional formatting and trigger words allows me to locate informal words such as "sides" and strengthen student vocabulary by referring to the cabinet's sides as a faces of a rectangular prism.

Google Forms Conclusion:
A Google Form is a quick way to capture, sort, and assess student thinking, estimates, and information we might need in a problem-solving task so we can discuss the mathematics ahead of us. Furthermore,  since we captured student estimates during Act 1, it makes it extremely easy to go back and do two things:
1) Check our answers for reasonableness
2) See who had the best estimate after watching Act 3.

Learn more about Google Forms here.

More from the My Tech Tools Series:

• My Criteria
• Pear Deck
• Desmos
• Kahoot!

Google Forms,
519

My Tech Tools [Desmos]

Desmos Activities (Activity Builder)
• Capture
Not completely necessary, but students can log in with a Google account. One benefit to logging in with a Google account is that a student can access previous sessions (their work) at any time because Desmos activities save in real time. Desmos also has a teacher dashboard to know which students have shared their thinking on a specific question in REAL TIME. The teacher dashboard does a wonderful job capturing student graphs and text responses. Note the progress bars below. Unlike Pear Deck, the Desmos activities allow students to move at their own pace. I love this feature, but it might make the sorting and assessing a tad more challenging at times.

Wishlist:
- I wish logging in with Google did not allow students to edit their name.
- I wish the teacher could choose the activity to be "student-paced" or "teacher-paced"
- I wish there was a way for students to enter mathematical notation in the text boxes.

• Sort
The teacher dashboard allows the teacher to sort ALL student responses:
- as an individual student
- as thumbnails (of graphs)
- as a list (of text responses)
- as an overlay
With so many ways to sort student work, the teacher dashboard can allow the teacher to focus either on specific questions, a single student's graph/work/note, or the overall climate of the classroom. There are many great sorting features that can make the session extremely informative when assessing. One feature Desmos Activities lacks is sorting student work alphabetically. As a teacher, I'm still able to assess student thinking, but I know sorting alphabetically would make the process more efficient.

Wishlist:
- I wish student names could be sorted alphabetically on the left and with thumbnails.

• Assess
Since students can work at their own pace during a Desmos Activity, it makes it a tad more challenging to assess student thinking at times. The more screens your students have to see or interact with during the activity, the more a teacher needs to assess. This can be both informative and daunting to a teacher. I prefer using or creating activities with a specific focus, making it clear to the teacher if students are working toward learning objectives. The Match My Parabola activity (seen here) allows the teachers to visually assess the progress (and understanding) of students matching parabolas. A picture is a thousand words of student understanding, and Desmos graphs do that.
Two tech tips:
1) Use the power of Command+F on your computer for assessing academic language.
2) Log into your dashboard on a tablet and circulate the room.

 

• Discuss
A well-designed Desmos activity will allow both students and teachers to discuss their thinking and the mathematics. This presents the teacher with many teachable moments. Since you currently can't hide student names, a teacher can log into the session and use their screen (session) to discuss the mathematics. Personally, I love using student work to discuss the math. Until the dashboard can hide student names, you might need to be creative and use the Snipping tool (Windows or Mac) to quickly grab student work and display it in another presentation-style program for students to see. I have had so many rich discussion with students because of the thinking I am able to assess. Here's a nifty little trick to make your workflow more efficient.
Wishlist:
- I wish there was a button to toggle between hiding names and viewing names on the dashboard
[update] You can now toggle between student names and pseudonyms.
- I wish there was a button to lock student screens when discussing specific parts of the activity.

Desmos Activities Conclusion:
In conclusion, pick activities that are focused and have a clear learning objective that can be assessed best with minimal screens. The awesome Desmos team continues to release updates to their Activity Builder and I'm hopeful that many things on my wishlist (and yours too) will soon become realities. For example, sorting student names alphabetically is important to me because it would make my workflow much more efficient, essentially allowing me to assess student thinking quicker. I'm confident Desmos Activities will see all green from me soon!

Learn more about Desmos Activities here.

More from the My Tech Tools Series:

• My Criteria
• Pear Deck
• Google Forms
• Kahoot!

Desmos,

519

My Tech Tools [Pear Deck]

Pear Deck
• Capture
Because each student must log in with a Google account, the teacher can use the teacher dashboard to know which students have shared their thinking on a specific question in REAL TIME. There are numerous ways to capture the mathematical thinking of students: draggables, text response, number response, multiple choice, agree/disagree, free-hand drawing tool, and more. Below is an example of draggables.

Wishlist:

- I wish there was a way for students to type in mathematical notation at times.

• Sort
The screens inside a Pear Deck session are controlled by the teacher. The teacher-paced sessions make it easier to sort through the student responses. The teacher dashboard allows the teacher to sort ALL student responses:
- as a Grid (thumbnails)
- as a Table (list)
- by a proximity sensor (draggables)

• Assess
Because Pear Deck captures every student response and allows the teacher to sort student thinking efficiently, the teacher can assess it many ways. For example, the teacher can use the Table view to quickly see text responses, number responses, or multiple choice answers. The Grid view (thumbnails) can be used to assess draggables or student writing. The teacher can also click on any student's name and immediately get their thinking.

Wishlist:
- I wish less lag would occur when a teacher runs the dashboard on their iPad.

• Discuss
In addition to seeing answers from every student, the teacher can get the climate of the class when looking at the teacher dashboard. When I say climate, the teacher can get the general (majority, average, etc.) thinking of the class. The teacher can also anonymously project student answers on their classroom wall so everyone can see how the class is thinking. This allows the class and teacher to discuss both their thinking and the mathematics. Furthermore, the teacher can choose to project specific student responses (that are still anonymous).

Additionally, Pear Deck has a lock feature that allows the teacher to lock student screens. The strength of this feature (in my opinion) is for students to come up for air from their devices and pay attention to the projector view and discuss the mathematics.

Pear Deck Conclusion:
Yes, certain features of Pear Deck cost money. However, I'd gladly pay this money (out of pocket if I had to) in order to be more informed as a teacher. I think students take more risks because their answers are anonymous to the class. Pear Deck can be used to launch a lesson, check for understanding throughout a lesson, or as an exit slip. It's extremely versatile, anonymous to students, informative to the teacher, interactive, and integrates smoothly with Google.

Learn more about Pear Deck here.

More from the My Tech Tools Series:

• My Criteria
• Desmos
• Google Forms
• Kahoot!

Pear Deck,

519

My Tech Tools

In a recent post, I defined what's important to me, my tech tool criteria, and a video version too. I want to be clear, this is a very specific focus. I will say it again:

I need tech tools that allow me to focus on student thinking because student thinking will better drive my math instruction.

Here is a series breaking down the tools that meet my criteria (comments welcome):

• Pear Deck
• Desmos Activities 
• Google Forms

*And one tool that does not meet my criteria.

A video intro with more detailed thoughts.

P. S. 
Here are a couple math tech tools that meet a different set of criteria.
• Motion Math (extreme fun talking math with my son)
• CueThink (a great problem-solving framework)
• Formative (a tool I hope to learn more about)

Tech Tools,
516

A Jammed Rational-Irrational War, Stacking Cups Week

Some cool stuff happened this week. Well at least I think it was cool.

Monday: 

One of my math fellows was observed by other math teachers from our district. He was starting a new unit with rational and irrational numbers, focusing on 8.NS.1 and 2. I might be wrong, but pretty dry stuff… here’s how we spiced it up a little.

We did a pre-assessment using the Post-It Plus app. Yes, my obsession with Post-It notes has gone to a new level: digital. We created a file within the app, posted it on his Haiku calendar, and had the students download the file into their app on their iPad. 

Students first worked individually to sort the terms from least to greatest for a few minutes. Since his students are grouped in fours, they then narrowed it down to one iPad screen they thought was most accurate. (Quick demo)

*Reflection: we should have had students paired up first, discuss, and narrow it down to two screens for the entire group. Next, the whole group of four students would discuss and narrow the two iPad screens down to one screen for the group.

Once each group settled on a screen they felt most confident with, they took a screenshot and uploaded their group’s screenshot to the Padlet page my fellow created for them.

My fellow used this Padlet page to assess the overall climate of the class (without teaching them a single thing). He used this real-time data to have some really rich conversations and share-out of ideas from students.

Remember to tell students:

• It’s okay if you’re wrong. 
• Make your best guess.
• I just want to see what you already might know.

Flash forward to Friday:

The previous weekend I asked the same fellow what he thought about playing War with rational and irrational terms. Side note: I play a few card games with my young son and one of them is War. My fellow thought the idea was epic. He ran with it. Here how he made it awesome:

• He made these awesome cards.
• Some values had multiple representations
• Printed them out on card stock.
• Made a graphic organizer for students.
• Each group of four was broken down like this:
• 2 people played War while the other 2 people recorded and were the judges.
• The next round, the roles were switched.
• There were 3 rounds.
• Each round was 6-10 minutes
• He stopped class and made a spectacle whenever two students were at war.
• The third and final round was between the winners of the first two rounds.

I asked if I had his permission to share the cards and he said, “Sure.”

Tuesday:

Another fellow asked me to model Stacking Cups in their first period class, which ran less than 45 minutes. My fellow requested I complete the task with students in one period. I explained that I’ve never “finished” the task in one period because there is so much to explore and learn in the task. I respected the request and  tried to cram it into one period. I spent too much time launching the task. 

Act 2 (the best part) felt rushed and we still didn't finish. My fellow and I debriefed and made some adjustments so she could finish it with her next period. She stuck to the adjustments and did a fantastic job facilitating the task. The students were doing awesome and amazing math during Act 2… and what do you know? The class was over. I love that my fellow was going to revisit the task the next day. Could we have spent another day on the task? Yes. It’s a starting point and I’m very proud of my fellow for trying out something new and doing a great job. I’d say the sweet spot would be one-and-a-half days for this task...
*Side note: I encourage you do styrofoam cups earlier in the year, and use Stacking Cups throughout the entire linear systems unit.

Thursday:

Another teacher wanted me to model Stacking Cups as well. When we sat down to plan, she was totally cool with spending one-and-a-half days on the task. Great news!

I launched the task, used a Padlet page to capture what they noticed. I asked the question, "Where will they tie?" and used a Google form to collect their guesses (see my post on using Google forms to collect student thinking). 

We gave each group only 4 white styrofoam cups. Students were making tables, or writing equations, or some were even wanting to graph their equations. Interesting note: some students started their table with zero cups having a height of 9.2 centimeters. The teacher had only taught graphing systems, so students were already thinking ahead to substitution. It was awesome. She did a wonderful job facilitating her first 3-Act task. We didn’t finish the task in one period, but it felt right knowing we had another half-day to wrap up the task. 

Back to Friday:

After work, I started putting the meat in my upcoming session, Math Mistakes and Error Analysis: Diamonds in the Rough. Although I will be showcasing a couple ways I’ve had success with error analysis with students, I love that I’ll be showcasing some awesome work and contributions from:

• my fellows
• Michael Pershan’s mathmistakes.org,
• Fawn’s Visual Patterns with Michael Fenton’s latest mod
• Open Middle by Robert Kaplinsky and Nanette Johnson

Hope to see you in my upcoming session as we explore why error analysis is important to:

• help drive instruction
• curb student misconceptions and
• strengthen formative assessment. 

Hope your week went well too. If not, hope this week is better.

Rational/Irrational,
516

Ask Your Students About 3 Pictures

A few months ago, I asked for some input regarding your experience with photocopiers as I prepare for a session on error analysis. Thanks for all your help and input. As I continue my preparation, I asked Twitter to share three things you noticed about these three pics.

With over 70 responses, the results have been fun to look at. My session is about effectively using error analysis. One small part I'm curious about is if we can make any generalizations about spotting things that seem out of place. Are we conditioned to look for flaws, or is it something we innately do?
Next phase: I'm curious what students see. If you can put this questionnaire in front of your students, I'd be super appreciative. It's anonymous. Just give them the survey and don't tell them anything other than what are two things they notice about each picture. Maybe it'll foster some discussion in your classrooms after they take it.

A shortened URL is: goo.gl/8XuN8z

3 pictures,
843

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,
216