How to get your math class SCREAMING

I know students are not supposed to be using mobile phones in class for private communications*, but I couldn't help but smile when one of my students showed me a text message she had just received from a friend in the class next door : "What are you guys doing in there? We can hear you screaming!"  

If you don't know who these five boys are,
 then you're definitely not teaching at a girls school.

So a little context first (context is everything!): This class doesn't really like maths that much - they tolerate it - I try my best to make it relevant and pleasant, trying to raise their confidence and skill levels. We've been studying a fairly dry topic for the last few weeks - they've done reasonably well in the topic test but need more practice. Looking for something engaging to make the second half of a long double period interesting, I turned to Stu Hasic's Quiz Boxes.

Download Stu's Quiz Boxes at http://quizboxes.com/

Quiz Boxes offers a Jeopardy! style game with questions of increasing complexity organised into categories, with a high stakes question at the end. Students love this game - and with careful planning and implementation (you will need to design the questions) it makes for a terrific fun period with high levels of engagement and gets students doing a lot more maths revision than they might have otherwise intended :-). There are many ways you can use Quiz Boxes so I would like to share an approach I have found that works well for classes of all levels of maths achievement. 

Quiz Design

• Choose categories that students are interested in.  Current hot topics are "One Direction", "Justin Bieber", "Beyonce", "You Tube Hits" and "In the Movies".  Find whatever your class is interested in. Once they play the game, they will suggest topics to you. Since I don't know that much about One Direction, I go to Wikipedia and collect the factual information I need. Find some obscure information for the harder questions. Your students will be amazed you know something so detailed about One Direction - and infuriated most of them don't know it.  I like to use student interests for half the categories, and use more explicit math topic categories for the rest.
• Work maths into the "non-maths" categories. For example, my third question on One Direction was "What percentage of One Direction are boys?". OK - it is a simple question - but it reinforces the idea that 100% means "all". One question I found generated interesting responses was "How many records has Beyonce sold?" - which gave a good opportunity to explore estimation. Another One Direction question: What is the name of the band member who is last in alphabetic order?"  Again - it's easy, but it gets some mathematical thinking happening.
• Make the maths category questions easy at the start You want students to engage with the maths categories. I always start with easy questions - if you make them too hard, students will turn off - it's not a game any more. I save the harder questions for the 800 and 1000 point questions. I make the end-game question a more challenging - but doable - math question on the current topic.

The Quiz editor in Stu's Quiz Boxes.
 I find I can reuse the quizzes across many grade levels,
 making this an efficient use of lesson preparation time.

Playing the game

This game is so much fun, and the students get so excited, it's essential to have a management strategy.

• Every group gets a chance to answer the question. This is perhaps the biggest change I make to playing the game: I don't have a "first-answer-wins" approach. In a classroom of 30 students, it's impossible to work out who gave the first answer and the noise levels are impossible if you go this way. Instead every group has a mini whiteboard to write their answer (you could use just a sheet of paper).  Once I see a group has a quality answer (doesn't have to be correct - just interesting), I yell "2 minutes" and give all the other groups time to complete. When I call "time up", we look at all the answers and every group that has a correct answer gets the points.
• Encourage group checking of answers. As the questions get harder and are worth more points, I ask each group to ensure everyone agrees on the answer before presenting it. This gives the group a chance to teach the content to each other. It's wonderful to see students try to convince each other their answer to a maths question is correct.
• Noise level management. This is hard because it's so exciting. Never have you seen a class so interested in knowing what 8% of $200 is! As the noise level rises you'll have to calm the class down.
• Prizes. I confess to motivating with a very small chocolate prize. I give one to every student at the end and don't buy into "but we won...." discussions - as far as I'm concerned everyone is a winner if they participated :-)  Waving the packet at the start of the game gets their attention - but it's amazing how quickly the students forget about the chocolate and become obsessed with winning game points.

Special thanks to Stu Hasic who so kindly donated Quiz Boxes to the education community.  I highly recommend you try Quiz Boxes with your classes. And over time you will develop a bank of quizzes which you can share with other teachers in your faculty - or maybe even at Stu's website.

Practicalities

Here's what you need:

• A data projector (or an Interactive White Board)
• A copy of Quiz Boxes - free download from Stu's web site
• A pre-prepared quiz. It can take a good hour to design a quiz, but you will find you can reuse quizzes across many year levels and they stay current for several years.  You might like to challenge your class to design quiz questions for a category - although this will take some time and planning.
• Students arranged in groups - maximum six groups for Quiz Boxes.
• Mini-whiteboards OR a pad of paper per group.
• Solid walls between you and the classroom next door. Close your windows :-)

Building confidence in maths class with SET!

A few months ago, a friend asked me to look after her 9 year old daughter for an afternoon. I was scrambling for things to do - and rummaging through my cupboards found a deck of cards for the pattern matching game SET!  At the time the young girl was struggling with mathematics, so I wasn't sure how she would take to it, but to my surprise, we ended up playing the game for hours. I knew I was on a winner - I rushed out to the games store and bought three more decks with the intention of seeing what would happen if I tried SET! with a class of teenagers who really disliked being in math class.

SET! is a pattern matching game which initially really hurts your head. Find sets of three cards where for each attribute (shape, colour, quantity and fill),  that attribute is either all the same or all different. Try it online at the New York Times SET! puzzle page.

At first they didn't want to try the game. I didn't force it, but eventually one group of students decided it might be more fun than regular class work and were willing to give it a go.  Working out how to play SET! does take a little time and I wondered how patient they would be with it.  For a while it looked like it might not work, and then suddenly one of my least engaged students - who repeatedly told me she can't do maths - started finding all the patterns. Suddenly the competitive nature of the students kicked in.  Other students started asking to be taught the game.  Over the next few weeks, most of the class was lured into the game.  For higher achieving mathematics classes, you won't need any subtlety to introduce SET! - they will take to it like ducks to water - marvelling at the elegant simplicity of the game that manages to hide so much variation and complexity.

A key feature that makes SET! so engaging is there are many different types of sets (patterns) to find in the deck. Some are fairly easy to spot, others are quite complicated. This means that students at different skills levels of the game can play together - there is something for everyone. Once the weaker students start having success finding the easier patterns, they get more involved and before long most are finding the harder patterns.

Bringing SET! into the classroom gave some students for the first time (I think) a  tangible demonstration they could succeed at challenging mathematical tasks.  They knew it was a game that required skill, patience and some strategy to master, and some of them were absolutely fantastic at playing the game. As a teacher, I was amazed to see students who usually had an almost non-existant attention span, starting intently and silently at a set of cards for minutes at time.  Highly recommended - give it a try!

Teaching Ideas

• Start off by reducing the deck to cards of only one colour. This reduces the complexity of the game by one dimension. Warn the students it will get "much much" harder when you put in the rest of the deck (and it will) - but they will soon be begging for the harder version. When they do get the full deck it will hit them hard - but by now they are hooked :-).  And when they do master the full game - the pay off is sweet.
• Ask the students to describe and name the card attributes. Let them tell you. Ask the students to choose names for the shapes. Once they name the shapes with their names, it becomes their game - use their terminology as you play the game. I like to share the names my 9-year old friend gave them: diamonds, peanuts and airplane windows. And I find using slightly childish names for the counts ("onesies, twosies, threesies") adds to the fun and reduces any stress students may feel about a maths game.
• Have a 15 second time out rule : If one student in the group is finding all the sets, put them on a 15 second timeout to give others a chance to learn the game.
• Go gently. Don't over-emphasise the logic elements - allow students to develop the idea over time that logic and strategy will help them locate patterns more efficiently.  Some lower achieving mathematics students will be intimidated by the game - I found a gentle approach, and allowing them to watch others play worked well. Their friends will encourage them to play - you don't need to. It's wonderful to hear students who initially told you the game looked stupid now encouraging other students to learn it with them.
• Choose your time wisely to discuss pattern finding strategies. Don't rush it - wait until they are really hooked. It doesn't matter it they don't find all the patterns - deal out some more cards. When students are ready for it, I like to rearrange the face up cards into number groups while discuss pattern finding strategies.
• SET! makes a great activity to use a 'group rotation' style activity session where you have different activities at each table and students move around the classroom. You may find SET! takes longer than your other activity and counts for 2 time slots in the rotation (so make two tables).
• Put an interactive SET! game up on your Interactive Whiteboard. Once students have mastered the (physical) card game, try the online version. The New York Times offers 4 SET! puzzles each day, 2 basic and 2 advanced. Invite groups of students to come up to the board and solve them. Could also make a good reward for students who complete work early.
• The SET! website has some interesting mathematics teacher resources about SET!  There are many high quality investigations students of all levels could be encouraged to try out.

Purchasing SET!

• Amazon sells SET! at good prices - around US$12. Unfortunately they will not deliver this product to Australia. In Sydney, Games Paradise (Pitt St) sells them for around AUD$20 - and good to support this friendly and helpful specialist shop.
• One pack will keep around four students occupied. 3-4 packs for a classroom is enough as not all your students will be playing SET! at once.

Show-and-Tell 21st century style

A small technology revolution has just landed at our school. What initially appeared a minor upgrade to our kit has proven to be a powerful tool to increase learning and engagement in my classroom. Two weeks later,  I'm still amazed at the impact for such a small investment in time, money and training.  As one of my students observed  "You love your new toy don't you Sir?"  Yes I do - the HoverCam is an amazing tool for teaching!

Make your student work the star attraction!
HoverCam image from http://www.thehovercam.com/ 

What is a HoverCam? It's a document viewer which allows you to place documents under the camera and instantly display them on a data projector or interactive whiteboard. You can write on the document and see changes in real time on your display, and with one click you can capture the image for posterity.  

Why has this made such an impact? My students can now see - in real time - the work their peers are doing in class. The real secret to getting the most out of the HoverCam is to display student work, not teacher work. The first time I showed some student work, the rest of the class was stunned - and immediately hands went up everywhere "Show mine, show mine!".  Yep - it's really just the old "Show-and-Tell" using modern technology.  As I continued using the HoverCam over the next few weeks, I kept being surprised at the student reaction. Students eagerly completed work, keen to show it to the class. The more I experimented and thought about what our class was "showing" and how we were "telling", the more powerful I realised the tool could be.

The biggest surprise for me has been the effect in more challenging classes. Students in these classes are often disengaged, no surprise after years of being told they are incapable of doing the work, and their written work is often very poor quality. But even in these classes, there are usually one or two students with beautiful written work - although - and here is the catch - most other students in these classes have no idea quality work is being done by their peers. They have never seen it. Until the HoverCam! The effect on the class when they do see this quality work is really amazing - suddenly pens start moving across the page - keen to show they to can do good work.

Here's what I have learnt so far using the HoverCam:

• Make student work the star attraction. Are you showing your work or your students' work? It's the student work the class is really interested in!
• Find a (genuine) reason to show work of struggling or disengaged students: Watch how a distracted or disruptive student suddenly gets focused after receiving honest public praise for some aspect their work.
• Select student work carefully. Search for student work that allows you to develop your lesson goals. Ask students "Does anyone have something like (or not like) this, and would like to show it?". 
• Give very specific feedback on displayed work: "This is good because ..... ",  "I like how (student) did (this) .... and they could add (this) to make it even better". 
• Use student work as the source material for your explanations and examples. So much more interesting that your own examples - especially if the lesson activity is generating creative, interesting or fun student output. 
• Always ask student permission to show their work to the class. Sometimes even though a student has done interesting high quality work, they may not want the attention - be sensitive. If you tell them in advance what you will be highlighting about their work, they may be more willing. And thank students for allowing you show their work.
• Teacher "Show-Don't-Tell":  Demonstrate how to do lesson activities using the camera - especially for paper based activities. For example, I will show how to grade work during pair marking, how to record dice throwing results, how to mark up diagrams. So much more efficient than trying to explain in words how to do it!
• Use the HoverCam to record student output. I was able to scan twenty samples of student work in just a few minutes - a fantastic record of student work for the lesson. Something to capture the work for later analysis or to show to parents.
• Silliness: Students will want to put their hands and face under the HoverCam - you will need to keep an eye on it if you leave it running while you are working with other students.

Will the effect wear out as students get used to seeing their work displayed to the class? I haven't seen it yet - I think so long as lesson activities are interesting and give students opportunities to produce work they want to share, the class will remain interested in this digital take on "Show-and-Tell".

A special thank you to my head teacher for his vision and energy getting HoverCams installed across our school, and to a colleague who encouraged me to try the HoverCam with a challenging class despite my initial skepticism. 

Disclaimer: This post is written as a personal response to my classroom experience using this product. Neither my school nor myself have received any consideration from HoverCam.

Standard Based Grading : helping eliminate academic fear and failure

Following from the discussion SBG and the Circle of Courage,  I would like to consider SBG in relation to the work of Andrew Martin - a leading education psychology  researcher on student motivation and engagement.   Here's my interpretation in stick figures (with apologies!!) of Andrew Martin's most recent book Building Classroom Success: eliminating academic fear and failure.  While the book doesn't have stick figures, it's extremely well written and a great asset for teachers.

Students build a view of themselves that works like this:

As a consequence, students build many clever but often maladaptive behavours to protect their self-esteem. So for example: I only got 20% because last night I was playing games on the internet instead of studying - but really I could do it if I wanted to - it's not about my competence. In fact, the student is terrified they will fail, and so to protect their self-esteem, they make sure they play that game all night. We need to help students break the tight linkage they make between performance, competence and self esteem:

and instead help students see the role that effort, strategy and attitude play:


Observe also that knowledge and skills are identified as distinct from competence. They are developed through effort, strategy and attitude - and these are all factors the student can control.  We then extend the view to show that failure is not a direct link to competence; that competence can be developed; and that self-esteem can be built on more than just competence:

Andrew Martin goes on to encourage us to help students focus on mastery of the subject, rather than dwelling on performance compared to other students, and to show how effort, strategy and attitude will help gain mastery. Most importantly: to show students that these factors are actually under their control.

So where does Standards Based Grading [SBG] fit in this model?  Let me count the ways ... here are just a few:

Most importantly, SBG smashes the simplistic correlation of performance to competence. Instead of providing a single figure "you passed, you failed" therefore "you are smart, you are not smart", it highlights individual elements of knowledge and skills the student has mastered and has not mastered.  So long as we have the discussion carefully, we never impune the student's competence: we have a discussion about what they know, not how smart they are.  And note this works for the advanced student as well as the less successful student: they don't get "87% great!", they get "you understood this, now lets focus on these...".

SBG helps show students that performance depends on prior mastery : Academic success doesn't just happen because you are smart - it's built on successfully mastering earlier work. SBG makes this very clear - because mastery of previous knowledge is explicitly recorded and tracked.

SBG helps turn failure into feedback for future growth : When students encounter failure in assessment, big or small, they get specific information on where and how they might improve.

SBG provides a mechanism for having the discussion about effort, strategy and attitude : A concept that has come through strongly in the SBG discussion is that before students can ask to be reassessed on a standard, they have to actually do something to help master it, and demonstrate this effort, before we offer them the choice for reassessment.

SBG allows us to customise appropriate success goals for each student: For each student we can help them define mastery goals to extend them from where they currently are. We can also help them track improvement and personal bests, building their self-esteem in the process.

The take home message? SBG as it's being discussed in the blogsphere seems well aligned to best practices recommended by leading ed psych research for maximising academic success. Andrew Martin's work suggests we need extend the SBG process to look carefully at the "what happens next?" question: once we have determined where the student is at for each skill on the SBG chart, what sort of discussion do we have with the student? What can we do to support increased effort, appropriate strategy and positive attitude as the student prepares to either reassess a standard, or move to the next set of standards?  It seems we need to think carefully with the student which of these elements will benefit from further attention - and then help them find ways to progress.