I did it! I successfully revamped my MDM 4U course following an activity based and spiralled approach to learning.
Was it perfect? No.
Was it messy along the way? Yes - but change is always messy and you have to be flexible to adapt as the unexpected arises (shortened classes, activities taking longer or shorter than anticipated, etc.)
Will I do it again next year? Absolutely, with some minor tweaks.
HIGHLIGHTS:
My biggest success of the year was the high level of student engagement in every lesson. I found students came into class excited to see what the next activity was. Each student had something to contribute to the discussions and students were more likely to disagree with each other and present their point of view.
I also found I was excited about teaching. After 13 years of teaching, it was a new challenge which was fun.
STRUGGLES:
On the teacher end of planning, one struggle was finding appropriate activities to suit the needs of the lesson. I was grateful for Twitter for ideas. I often took an idea from another grade level and had to tweak it to my content and ability levels. It was also sometimes tricky to know exactly how much time an activity would take.
On the student end, it was a struggle to help them properly document their learning on a daily basis without giving too much information before the activity. As I mentioned in an early post, students are used to filling out worksheets during a lesson which makes it very clear what the unit content is. Taking these worksheets away and not coaching them on how to take their own notes did cause some anxiety at the beginning of the course.
NEXT STEPS:
I blogged last summer about the amazing Plinko board that my dad helped me build last summer. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to use it this year however my ambitious goal is to use it once a month next year (in a non-semestered school, this would be 9 - 10 times in a year).
I also want to provide more opportunities for students to show their knowledge and receive formative feedback on their skills. I picked up an idea at OAME 2017 about "Fast Fours" quizzes and hope to use this idea in my class next year. Once a cycle (every 8 days), students would start the class with a 4 question quiz - one question from 4 main strands of the course (Probability; Statistics; Organizing Data; and Collecting Data).
My plan for next year also involves being more clear on the specific learning goals of each lesson/activity. I now know that my students need more coaching, right from day 1, on how to create their own notes in a math class. By being specific on what the learning goals are for the activity, both as an introduction and a very clear summary, students will have more confidence in their understanding of the content well before summative evaluations.
After presenting at OAME 2017 (here are my slides from that presentation), I've had a few requests for more resources on activities that I've done in my class room. My goal next year is to blog more regularly - hopefully once a month - with details on how the 2nd year is going along with information on what specific tasks I'm using in my classroom.
Finally, I know I need to give more time throughout the year to the final project. Students are asked to pick a topic of interest and analyze data to hopefully prove their hypothesis. I did have to rush part of this at the end of the year and student feedback was that they didn't always understand what they were doing. My plan for next year is to tie it to our classroom activities but rolling it out earlier in the year - having them chose their topic by mid-October.
Happy summer!
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