A Game That Students Love + Growth Mindset = Win Win

Gimkit was one of my kids' favorite things to do last year. I loved how engaged and excited they were.  You can check out this blog post if you want to know more about all the reasons that I love Gimkit.  As much as I loved it, there was definitely a learning curve for me.

At first, I thought I would use Gimkit similar to how I use Kahoot.  However, I quickly figured out that it didn't work the same way for me as a teacher. In a Kahoot, I would immediately know what questions the kids were getting right and what questions they were missing.  We could talk as we played about misunderstandings that needed to be addressed.

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!

My NCTM Experience Part 2: Jo Boaler

       The very first day of the NCTM conference, I was so excited about all of the sessions that I forgot to leave myself time to eat lunch.  That's not even true--I knew that I hadn't left a lunch break but I just couldn't help myself!  Jo Boaler was speaking at 12:30 and I was NOT going to miss that.  It as well worth it (and I did manage to find time to eat a quick sandwich after Jo spoke).

     Earlier this year, I read Mathematical Mindsets and it was a truly amazing read.  Listening to her talk was equally amazing.   Jo talked about many of the points from the book but I also had a few different take-aways.  Here are some of the most important points I took away from this hour.

1.  "If you're not struggling, you're not learning."--I talk a lot about making mistakes with my kids at school, and I think I have done a decent job of helping them realize that mistakes are a good way to learn.  But this phrasing helps me realize I need to take that message a step further...I need to normalize the struggle, and not just the mistakes (or right answers).

2.  "Math is not about speed, it is about depth and multiplicity of ideas."--Again, this is not a new message for me, but hearing it at this session just helped reinforce how important this is.  According to Jo, much of math anxiety onset begins  with timed tests. Interestingly, she said that math anxiety most affects the high achievers.  This matches with my beliefs....I've always been one to give kids as much time as needed.  Looking at this made me realize that although I have never really associated  speed with being good at math, this is not something that I talk a lot to the kids about.  I need to do a better job of verbalizing this message to my kids....math should be about deep thinking and understanding over speed.

3.  Teach kids to be skeptics--I love this idea.  What a great way to encourage great discussion and listening skills.  Jo gave three levels of being a critic.....convince yourself, convince a friend, and convince a skeptic.  I'm trying to figure out exactly how to incorporate this into my classroom norms for next year, but I definitely love this idea.

4.  Math freedom--This was one of my biggest take-aways.  Jo showed several clips of kids from her summer math camp, and so many of them talked about freedom being the reason that they liked the camp when they didn't like math in school.  Jo expanded on this idea into two types of math freedom:  organizational freedom and math freedom.

• Organizational freedom included several things such as how you handle talking, sharing, recording, spending your time and movement in your room.  I'll be honest....this one gives me pause as a classroom teacher.  I understand that kids like freedom in moving around and how they spend their time....but I also know that in my classroom, structure and procedures have always been a bedrock that help my room run effectively.  I don't want to discount this idea, but I do think it is easier to do some of these things in a summer camp setting versus a regular classroom setting.  This is one I will take some time to reflect on this summer and think of ways that I can use this.
• Math freedom included things like interpretation of problems, how kids see problems, learning new ideas, how we think about mistakes, and ideas about inquiry and creation.  I really loved this idea of math freedom....that kids begin to see math as a subject that is not just a set of rules, but there is freedom about where to start and how to proceed.  I want kids to see that math can be creative in how you think about a problem and that it needs to make sense.

I was so inspired by all of these ideas that since I've gotten back, I've taken Jo's free online course for students call "How to Learn Math for Students".  It had such great messages for students that I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate this awesome material into my classroom next year.  I also enrolled in "How To Learn Math for Teachers and Parents".  This one was not free, but I'm so excited to see what else I can learn.  I've just started the course, and I look forward to all that I will learn.

I'm already starting to have some ideas about how I want to change up some things in my classroom next year.  One definite thing is that I will be starting next year with some form of the free online course.  The other big thing I have been considering is changing up how I do homework.  I really want to make it more self-directed...I think I'll blog more about this idea later as it is still forming in my head.  I just know that I'm wanting to move towards something that is differentiated and puts it to students to examine where there are at and push themselves.