Pie in the Face!

Yesterday was one of the best math classes ever in Mrs. Collins’ room. One of our students had reached 90% on her ALEKS pie and she got to pie Mrs. Collins. Another student provided ice cream and chocolate syrup for an extra celebration, as the student was the first to reach 90%. Mrs. Collins was a good sport about us being crazy, but she admits that washing whipped cream out of your hair is pain. Maybe it was good conditioner? No, but our celebration was really nice considering we didn’t need to have one at all. Thank you Mrs. Collins!

-Mimi Pd. 6 iHelp

Class Dojo

Class Dojo

Since the start of the school year Mrs. Collins has been using a program called Class Dojo with us. On this program we get points for good behavior and any classroom jobs that we have. (See also: Pintrest Visionary and Teacher’s Assistant Job) When we get these points we can spend our points on candy, chocolate, or other miscellaneous objects. Down below is a photo of one of the bigger prizes, this one was 100 points. The bad thing about this program, however is that Mrs. Collins hasn’t figured out how to take away some points without wiping all of them for the week

Here are some student opinions about the math error project.

“So for this project I had a lot of fun with creating the problem and finding a way to purposely make an error and then having people try to find what my partner and I did wrong.” - Cash

“I thought this project was great as well because it was so hard to make a mistake and keep it when you know it’s wrong. I think that Mrs. Collins should continue to do this activity for future classes.” - Mimi

“I thought that this problem challenged my partner and I , I liked how we could do it with partners and that we could make up the problem on our own and not have an assigned topic.”- Wenger

                                                 Cash & Mimi Pd 6 iHelp

A view from Rm 62- The Math Error Project

It always happens...every start of the new school year... I have a million plus one ideas running through my mind of how I want to incorporate best practices in my teaching. I see a big picture, but actually putting these ideas into action is the difficult part. I decided to start small with the math error project.

Let me start off by saying...Wow, I sure do have a great group of kiddos. They are fantastic. They have done a great job with this project, and I'm so proud of them. I had 2 main goals I wanted to accomplish at the start of this project.

1. Increase rigor for students using activities that would fall in the higher categories of Webb's DOK levels

2. Increase participation/collaboration through the use of technology

The math error project was broken down into two main parts:

1. Students created an open ended math question similar to ones they had solved in class. This problem needed to have at least 3 steps to solve, and it had to include fractions or decimals (We had just finished the number system unit, so they were applying this knowledge.) Once students created the open ended math question they created a Keynote presentation with three slides. Slide 1- The problem. Slide 2- Solving the problem while making an error. Slide 3- Correctly solving the problem. Students chose to either record their presentation through Keynote or Quicktime. The last step of this part was to upload it to the discussion board on our Schoology course.

Olivia  and Breanna explain the math error project.



2. The second part of the math error project was to watch a peer's presentation of the error project to determine the error through error analysis. Students would pause the presentation to solve, watch the error slide to determine the error, and lastly they would watch the correct slide to check their solution. They would then comment on their peer's problem in the Schoology course indicating what error was made on the second slide.

Trent and Parker explain their error analysis of a peer's error problem.



I was really impressed with what the students were finding during their error analysis investigations. They were using higher level thinking to not only solve their own problems but to also create a common error that could be made while solving. This is where I noticed the collaboration really helping. Students also were using higher order thinking while watching their peers problems and determining the error. To know the error the students had to solve the problem and work backwards to determine the error made.

Here is a sample error problem created by Megan  Imogin , and Abigal of period 6.



Most students were cognizant to the fact that these problems are published and therefore should be high quality work; it added a little pressure to the project. One of my "teachable moments" happened during this lesson in my 3rd period class. A group was working on solving their own problem correctly. I noticed they made one of the most common errors I see when dealing with elapsed time. At first they were bummed I found a "mistake" in what they thought was their correct solution. I shared with them that I was so happy they had made this mistake, because they could use it in the error slide. I was able to address the misconception while also praising them for learning from their mistakes. They could use it to teach others as well. #growthmindset ;) Using the rubric provided to the students at the start of this project, they will be given feedback on their groups project.

Overall, I was thrilled with the results of our first math error project. The students really picked the concept up fast. I was thoroughly impressed with their ability to collaborate and share with others. It was totally worth the risk. Shout out to Ryan Donnelly for being there for all of my tech questions, and shoutout to Brooke Sexton for the use of some of your open ended question materials. Mrs. Rogers- your support to the students throughout this project was second to none. Lastly (and certainly not least), to my 7th grade students- you are AMAZING!!!!!

Until the next time I try one of the million and one ideas.... Ciao

Carter and Ian are collaborating.

Jarod and Nolan are coming up with a creative problem.

Megan, Abbey , and Imogin are analyzing errors.

Matt and Andy work together to come up with a creative question.

Trent analyzes another group's error.

Teacher's Assistant Job

The teacher's assistant(s) answer the phone, write problems on the board, grade papers, and award class dojo points on the iPad. They also connect with those who are the Pinterest Visionaries to think of creative activities that tie into the lessons. The two teacher's assistants I interviewed are Jason Stephan and Tiffani Wilhelm.
                                   -Mimi, Pd. 6 iHELP

The Pinterest Visionary Job

The Pinterest Visionaries "Help Mrs. Collins' classroom dreams become a reality"- Quote from Mrs. Collins. They find all the cool things that Mrs. Collins pins on Pinterest and create them. Sometimes they find neat pins themselves. Such things include decorating doors, bulletin boards, making classroom games, and decorating the walls. This picture features one of the visionaries Abby Stoltzfus, who works alongside Megan Yoder, Bre Fellenbaum, Imogen Baney, and others from other classes and grades. One of their first projects include decorating the outside of Mrs. Collins's door, and the fall season theme is "Fall into Math."
                                             - Mimi, Pd. 6 iHELP

The Great World of ALEKS

 So far this year in the wonderful world of math,  we have been using the program ALEKS. We have also learned how to add and subtract integers as a class. Here are some photos of us working on ALEKS to meet our weekly goal. Once we get our overall goal of 90% on ALEKS we'll get to hit Mrs. Collins in the face with a pie.

~Cash and Mimi, iHELP students PD 6