Reasons I Get Excited About STEM Challenges in Math

       STEM activities are all the rage, and my goal for this year is to make time for one STEM challenge each quarter this year.  I'll be honest, I'm fairly new to the STEM bandwagon.  Prior to 2016, I hadn't done any STEM challenges and I really had no plans to incorporate STEM in my classroom.  I figured that I had enough on my plate just trying to teach all of the stuff that was in my standards.

       That all changed in the summer of 2016 when I was privileged to attend Honeywell Educators at Space Academy.  Space Camp helped me realize that I not only need to teach my kids math skills.  I also need to help them see the exciting things that STEM can open up for them.  I need to help my students see themselves as people who are capable of using math as a tool solve problems.  So began my experience with STEM challenges.

     Over the last couple of years, I've found some STEM activities that really fit my needs.  This year, I plan to do a STEM challenge every quarter.  I've become a STEM challenge enthusiast, and here are the reasons why I love STEM challenges.

1.  STEM challenges are a great way for kids to really see the real world applications of math.  Let's face it....our textbooks try to use story problems to accomplish this task, but they are often not successful.  The contexts in story problems are often too contrived to make students care about them.

The beauty of a STEM challenge, however, is that you are giving students a problem to solve.  As they complete the challenge, math can be one of the tools that they use to find and gauge their success.

2.   STEM challenges are a place to really show the need for precise measurements.  Measurement of a variable is often the key to determining success in a STEM challenge.  If the challenge is to build the tallest pipe cleaner tower, accurate measurement is definitely a key.  In other STEM challenges, students must stay within given constraints.  For example, if you are only allowed to use 6 square inches of foil in your product, you will need to measure accurately for this.

3.  The need for correct labels is clear.  I was doing a STEM challenge last year where students had to build a shelf to hold as many quarters as possible.  They were given limitations for the size of the shelf, such as less than 6 square inches.  This STEM challenge really exposed my students' misunderstandings about the difference between inches and square inches.  Even better, it gave me a way to address this misunderstanding at a time that my students needed to know that information.

4.  STEM challenges are a great chance to introduce students to the power of spreadsheets.   STEM challenges often involve data collection, and this is a good way to incorporate the technology part of STEM.  Spreadsheets are a great way to collect the data. What a great way to introduce students to the power of a spreadsheet than with a bunch of data that they collected!  Last year we did a STEM pipe cleaner challenge, and there were so many excited students when I showed them that they could enter the calculations once and the spreadsheet could do all of the calculating for them.   In the real world that we live in, much of the math that we need can be automated with a spreadsheet.  It is so important for students to begin to see that math isn't always about doing the calculations yourself, but sometimes about knowing how to get a computer to do them for you!

5.  STEM challenges are a great way to work on a variety of math concepts.  Many STEM challenges involve measurement, data collection, and data analysis.  For many STEM challenges, however, the math part stops with these things.  However, I've found ways to incorporate many other topics:

• Area, surface area, and volume:  STEM challenges often involve creating some object, so I've found that I can often incorporate area, surface area or volume.  I did a STEM challenge last year where students had to build a diving pool for a daredevil high-diver (pencil cap erasers!).  After the challenge, students had to find the surface area and volume of their pool to see who had the pool with the least surface area.
• Percent change:  This works especially well if you give students a chance to improve their original creation.  For example, lots of STEM challenges involve students building tall towers.  I've seen these with spaghetti and marshmallows, pipe cleaners, cups, or even balloons!  To incorporate percent change, have the students complete the original project and measure their tower.  Then give them time to make revisions, or wait until another day and have them try again.  Then students can compare the percent change between the first and second attempt.
• Ratios:  I did one STEM challenge where students had to build a tower from candy and toothpicks.  The catch was that they were assigned a particular ratio of candy to toothpicks that they had to use. 
• Equations and inequalities:  I've found there are often ways to incorporate equations and inequalities into a STEM challenge.  Let's say your STEM challenge is for students to build a tower that is at least 12 inches tall.  Why not use this to introduce the idea of writing inequalities?  Or you could have all students put their tower heights on a number line, and introduce the idea of graphing inequalities.  When we built our candy/toothpick towers, we wrote equations relating the number of toothpicks to candy.

6.  STEM challenges are a great way to teach a growth mindset.  STEM challenges are all about trying things out and making adjustments to make things work better.   During a STEM challenge, it is no big deal to have something not work and try something different.  What a great opportunity for teachers to reinforce the power of learning from our mistakes to figure out better solutions or understandings.  I take any chance I can to reinforce the power of learning from our mistakes with my students.  

7.  STEM challenges are great for those random days that you don't know what to do with.  You know what I'm talking about....that 2 day week before Thanksgiving when you don't want to start something new.  Or that day when fourteen kids have the flu and you don't want them to miss the lesson that is such a foundation for your unit.  STEM challenges are great to fill in these random days, and yet still be focused on math.

8.  STEM challenges are great to engage all different kinds of students.  Kids love doing hands-on stuff and even my most reluctant math students will dive into a STEM challenge.

9.  They're fun!   We get so worried about teaching standards and finishing everything that sometimes the fun gets lost.  It's nice to hear the fun and excitement of a STEM day!  It's nice to hear kids in the hall talking about how much fun math is today.  It's nice to have kids still talking about something you did in class a week later.

10.  STEM challenges are a great way to get kids collaborating.  I always have my students work in groups on STEM challenges.  STEM challenges are a great way to get kids exchanging ideas, and incorporating ideas from many students.  This is a great way to work on "soft skills"!

What is your favorite STEM activity to do in math class?  Comment below!

Planning for the First Week and Beyond

     In my last post, I wrote about some things to think about when planning for your year.  In this post, I want to talk about how I actually go about implementing all of this.

     When I first started teaching, I used to spend the first day of class going over the syllabus.  At some point I realized how overwhelming (and boring!) that must be for students if every teacher is doing this on day one.  I also enjoy doing activities that help me learn about my students (and their names!) on the first day.  For the next couple of years, I started going over the syllabus on the second day of school so I could spend the first day learning about the kids.  Finally, I realized that there is never a good day to "go over the syllabus" for an entire class period.  I mean, let's be honest.....as an adult, am I able to sit and listen to someone talk about important rules and procedures for 45 straight minutes and actually absorb this information?  No!  So that is definitely not an effective way to go over the very important procedures that I really need for my students to know to have a smoothly running classroom for the rest of the year.

     My current system involves prioritizing my rules and procedures, as well as waiting until they are relevant to teach them.  Instead of teaching them all at once, I teach a few of a day for the first few weeks of school.  I am very strategic and careful about how I teach the rules. As I mentioned in the last post, I start with a list of all of my planned rules and proceduress for the year in a Google Doc.  As I am planning out my first week of school, I start looking over my procedures and prioritizing them.   

• What procedures are the most important to me?  
• What procedures will help my classroom be organized and allow for maximum learning?  
• What activities can I plan to give me a good way to teach my expectations and procedures?

As I'm planning, I pick the most important procedures and find ways to incorporate them in to the first week of school.  

      For me, the very first procedures that I teach are my expectations for the beginning and end of class. I feel this sends a good message to students about the value of class time by showing them exactly what is expected at the beginning of class so we can get started right away each day.  It is also important to me from the very beginning that students know that I expect us to be busy until the end of class (especially because I expect students to wait for my signal to be dismissed rather than the bell).  Another expectation that I teach right away is the supplies that I expect students to bring to class.  Since these are the most important procedures to get my class running smoothly, these are the procedures that I teach on the second day of class.  

       Once I have chosen a couple of procedures to teach, it's time to plan for the rest of class.  At the beginning of the year there are always lots of things that I want to do:  introduce growth mindset, do some goal setting, have the students take an interest survey, and.....do some MATH!  After teaching a couple of basic procedures, I pick an activity that meets one of these other goals.  Often I am able to naturally incorporate a few other procedures or expectations to go with an activity.  For example, if I  an activity that requires students to pick up a supply at the beginning and be turned in when they are finished, then I have the perfect chance to talk about these procedures.  Or if my activity involves students sharing how they solved a problem, then I take the chance to introduce my classroom listening norms.    Teaching procedures when students need to know, rather than all at one time, them leads to better retention.  

       Each day for the first couple of weeks, I continue teaching a few norms, rules, expectations and procedures.  I also continue to reinforce the rules that I have already taught.  It helps students to hear expectations several times over the first few weeks. It is also important to give students feedback on how they are doing with meeting expectations over these first few weeks.  Now is the time to teach your students how to do things the way you want.  Remember, you're teaching students how you want things done for the rest of the year.  It's worth a few extra minutes now to consider the ideal way you want things done.  Let's look at something that will happen a lot: turning in papers.  In my classroom, I have an alphabetical file sorter that I use for turn in.  As I imagine this happening, here are some things that matter to me:

I love that the papers are easy to stack, and in alphabetical order when students turn them in!

• I want all of the papers facing the same direction.
• I want all of the papers placed all the way under the first letter of the student's last name.
• I want students to be relatively quiet during the process.  
• I want students to return to their seat as soon as their paper is turned in.

If these are the things that are important to me, then I make sure that I tell students these expectations before they turn in papers the first time.  As they turn in papers, I am closely evaluating how they are doing.  If I notice a problem, I point it out as something we can improve next time (or perhaps something that we need to try again right away).  I also note anything that is done exceptionally well.  I will make sure to reinforce these expectations the first several times we use this procedure.  Let's face it, if you don't take time to get things going smoothly now, what's it going to look like in April or May?!?!

      Throughout the first few weeks of school, I keep my list of procedures close by.  As I teach a procedure, I cross it off my list.  This list is always close by the first weeks of school.  I use it during class as I teach my procedures.  I use it as I plan, to keep track of what procedures still need to be taught.   It is a well-worn friend by the time I get all of the procedures crossed off!

      You can also use other activities in your classroom to teach some of your procedures.  Do you enjoy using stations for your classroom?  Then use stations as a way to teach some of your procedures!  As a bonus, you can use those stations to teach students your expectations for moving around the room when doing stations.  Enjoy using games for practice?  Plan a Jeopardy game using questions off of your syllabus  and teach your expectations for playing games.  Love the collaboration and fun of escape rooms?  Plan an easy puzzle based on your classroom rules and teach students about perseverance, collaboration and growth mindset!

     It takes a few weeks, but I feel like this way of teaching procedures, rules and expectations is much more effective than having a boring day of class to go over the syllabus when I overwhelm students with more information than they can possibly take in.   There is a day that I love every school year.  There comes a day, usually a few weeks into school that I realize I didn't have to teach a single procedure....just math, all day long.  That is one of my favorite days each year....and it always goes more smoothly because the students know how I want them to do things!