Like I said in my last post, Krystal and I are really trying to get away from the "sit and get" style of learning in our classroom. We have worked hard throughout the semester to find activities for our Math II classes. My Essentials of College Math course has activities built in to the curriculum that was given to me. I'm pretty happy with the types of learning taking place.
As everyone knows, my classroom is set up in groups. This is definitely the easiest way to make classroom talk happen. My groups for my freshmen are set up with purpose. I allowed my seniors and sophomores to choose their seats from the first day (and they never got on my nerves with excessive talking, so they kept that privilege!) The seniors and sophomores have moved seats some (mostly based on their "friends" and drama, but a few have moved in order to have a better learning experience!). The freshmen tables have at least 1 A student and I tried not to put too many struggling students together. They are also based on who talks way too much, though I think some of the freshmen would talk to a brick wall if no one else was around.
I have been impressed with the mathematical talk happening in the many different activities. One recent example is the volume discovery we did with the geometric solids and sand from prom. First, the students grouped the solids into prisms, pyramids, and other. They had to discuss the difference between the prisms and pyramids (prisms are stacked shapes and have parallel bases, pyramids come to a point). Then, they had to match prisms and pyramids based on their bases (triangular prisms and triangular pyramids match, etc). I heard many good vocabulary words and explanations happening within the groups. Finally, they took the prom sand, dumped it in the pyramid, then found out how many times a pyramid fills up the prism with the same base (which was 3). Students also had to think about the volume, and write what they thought the formulas would be. We did some other things with the shapes, but this was the most self-guided and had the best outcome as far as classroom talk.
I was curious about the sand assignment! (Figured it had to do with volume, so I'm proud of myself.) I think one of the big things I've noticed besides just the classroom setup is establishing the EXPECTATION and a REASON for classroom talk. You give them something they want to know and make it a part of how the class functions, and you get the magic you're seeing!
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