Using clickers in the math classroom

Last semester my school purchased a few sets of classroom clickers.  I wrote a proposal for a classroom set with colleague, and we now share a spanking new set of Turning Technologies clickers.

I'm going to be honest--I really don't have much experience with other clickers (not even SMART clickers), but I will say this--I have been incredibly pleased with these clickers.  The initial setup is just a matter of copying your rosters into the software; you then assign a clicker to number to each student; and voila, you're ready to go.  My students are now in the habit of just picking up their clicker as they come in to class, just like they pick up a calculator.  There is no on/off button on these clickers, and students don't have to log-in, so I lose essentially zero instructional time.

Also...these clickers aren't just programmed for multiple choice responses.  You can have students enter short answer and numeric responses, too.  Love.  This.

So, that's my plug for Turning Technologies.  Now, a few things I've used these marvelous clickers for:

Are you with me?
Since there's no set-up/login time, I can say, "Ok guys, click A if you're with me, B if you're not," and the responses instantaneously come up on my computer.  For a question like this, I don't show the percentage of students answering A or B, but it's a great way for them to anonymously tell me, "Hey, I'm not quite following you yet...could we do one more example?"  Or, conversely, "We're bored to death, Mrs. Peterson, please pick up the pace."

Warm Ups
This is was my original intent for the clickers, and I love it.  I usually start with a warm up or review question, and I have students poll in their responses.  Students are engaged because they want to see if they got the question right, and if they did get it right, how many others did, too.  For these questions, I usually display the bar graph that shows the distribution of responses.  I can say, "Look!  80% of you said the conic was a hyperbola, and you're right!  So-and-so can you tell us how you came to that conclusion?"

Daily Practice--Differentiating Instruction
After instructional time, I can give the kids a set of problems to work on.  For example, last week I gave them eight questions on condensing and simplifying logarithms.  Once they polled in their answers, I gave them an assignment from the book (ah!), but they only had to work a certain number of problems based on how many they originally answered correctly.  Since the clickers are numbered 1-35, I could tell the students how many they missed, without revealing to the others who missed what.  I just said, "These are the clickers that didn't miss any, and, hence, only have to work six problems from the book:.... " (And, boy, you could hear a pin drop in the classroom as everyone was waiting to hear his/her clicker number called.)  "These are the clickers that only missed 1; you only have to work 8 problems," etc.  Once the kids started to finish up the assignment, I asked them to go help their peers.  They seemed more willing to do this than ever before.  Perhaps because they have the confidence of "I didn't miss any!  I can explain this stuff."?

Assessment Time--My Favorite
There are two types of polling for my clickers--"Anywhere Polling" and "Self-Paced Polling."  Anywhere polling is what I use for warm ups, when I mostly just want to see how my class is doing as a whole.  Self-paced polling, on the other hand, allows you to pre-enter keys so that you can get a feel for how each student is doing individually.  This is the mode I use for daily practice and assessments (i.e., when I want to take a grade).  One of the great things about this mode is that you can make multiple versions.  I typically don't bother with this when we're just doing daily practice, but when the kids are testing, you can bet I have more than one version out there.  The clickers just ask which version of the test you're taking, and then you're good to go.  For my sweet kids, I walk around the room after they've started testing and I personally enter which version they have into each of their clickers (I don't even put it on the test anywhere, I just mark the versions in sneaky ways that only I am privy to).  So, the multiple-version thing is pretty awesome.

Another great thing about this is that I can allow students to correct their mistakes.  For example, I've allowed them to poll in their answers, and then come to my desk before submitting the test.  I then marked the questions they got wrong and they were able to change their answers in the clickers.  They corrected their own errors.

Of course, the best part of all of this is that I can spend much less time on grading and more time planning successful lessons.

If you have other ideas for clickers, I'd love to hear them in the comments, or you can contact me in the tab on the top there.  The more uses I can find for these, the better!

Two disciplines that I think are making me a better teacher

Last spring I started reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts.  In her book, Voskamp talks about the tragedies she's faced in life...and how she's gotten through them.  For her, it all started with a dare:  Can you write down one thousand things you're thankful for?  She started this list, and the lessons she learned morphed into her book.  She keeps a journal of the things she is grateful for, and--she says--it's changed her life.

There's really just one criterion she gives herself:  be specific.

It's been about a year since I read her book, but the theme keeps nagging at me--what would it look like to live a life that's truly grateful?

I was curious.  But I also knew I needed ways to practice this thankfulness on a daily basis.  Voskamp had her journal.  I needed something concrete, too.  And, specially, how could I incorporate it into my teaching? Because that's basically my life right now.

This semester I'm trying out two ways to be thankful as a teacher.  Now, mind you, the semester has only just begun, so I hope this post isn't premature.  But, I've already started to see a change in my attitude...

Discipline #1:  Two Students a Day
I have 150 students.  For the most part, I love that.  I love that I have a chance to impact so many lives.  However, it can also be incredibly draining.  Their struggles--which often reach far beyond the world of academia--become my struggles and wear on me.  There's no way to give each kid the time s/he needs every day:  there just aren't enough hours in the day.

So, I needed a way to narrow down my focus somehow.  I bought a spiral notebook with index cards and wrote two students' names on each card.  Every morning, I flip over a card and see two students whom I purpose to be thankful for that day.  Some mornings, I see the names and think, "Well that's easy!  These kids are awesome."  Some days it takes me a while to come up with specific things I'm thankful for in those students.  But I'm liking the challenge.  And I do think it's changing me for the better.

Discipline #2:  One Good Thing
This wonderful blog started by Rachel Kernodle has been another great way for me to stay thankful.  The tag line says it all:  "Every day may not be good, but there is one good thing in every day."  At this blog, teachers share one good thing that happened that day.  What an incredible idea!  I've greatly enjoyed both reading and writing.

Part of the reason I'm sharing these two disciplines is because now that I've put it out there, I have an even bigger motive to stay consistent.  I hope I can continue these practices through the end of the year, and then reflect and see if they've changed me.  Time will tell...

A good little Pre-Calc Problem

Write the equation of a rational function with the following properties:

• A zero at x=4
• A vertical asymptote of x=2
• A slant asymptote of y=x-3

Conic Sections Flow Chart

I just finished conic sections with my Algebra II kids.  I used the Conic Cards, created by the wonderful Cindy Johnson (@Johnsonmath), with whom I get to teach in the same building!  Both Kristen Fouss and Amy Gruen have used the Conic Cards and written about the awesomeness of them here and here.  They are truly amazing.  I was dreading teaching conic sections, but after two weeks of card matching (and the two weeks were right after Christmas break, I might add), the kids were able to knock the socks off their first test of the semester.  Which leaves us all happy.

In order to emphasize the similarities and differences of the equations for conic sections, I created this flow chart that the students filled out and used once they had learned all four conics.  Before the flow chart, every time a kid would say, "Mrs. Peterson, is this a hyperbola?!" I would go through the same questions with her:

"Are both variables squared?"

"No."

"Good.  So you know it's not a...?"

"Parabola."

"Awesome.  Now are the squared terms being SUBTRACTED?"

"Yes.  Oh!  Yeah, it IS a hyperbola."

I got tired of going through these questions over and over and over.  Also, I don't think the kids realized the order in which I was asking the questions, which didn't do much for them except answer the immediate question.

So, now, instead of answering their question with a string of my own questions, all I have to say is, "Do you have your flow chart out?"  Much less work for me.  A little more work for them.  And they're reading.

Conic Sections Flow Chart by

The wording isn't perfect.  I don't know how to succinctly differentiate between the ellipse and the circle in standard form.  This is the best I came up with.  Of course, then kids think as soon as an equation has fractions in it, it can't be a circle.  That's not really what the wording says, but I totally understand the confusion.  I combated the confusion the lazy way:  all our circles' centers were (m,n) when m and n were both integers.

Another good thing:  this flow chart can be easily changed to classifying conic sections in general form.  I just had the students take a few extra notes on the side (such as changing different denominators to different coefficients), and they were good to go.

All in all, conic sections went very smoothly.  And now onto exponential and logarithmic functions!

#Made4Math :: Trolley Cart

Over break, I bought something that changed my life.

The 10-drawered, 5-colored cart you see up there?  How perfect is that for a teacher who teaches five classes a day?  Why did it take me this long discover this little jewel?

This is how I'm using it:  each of my five classes corresponds to a color, and each class has both an "In" drawer and an "Out" drawer.  Students deposit their work in their correct in-box, and if I have a handout or worksheet for absent students, I simply write their name on the paper and stick it in the out-box.  No more, "What did I miss yesterday?"!

I've only been using the cart for a week, but I'm already in love with it.  The kids seem to really like it, too, actually.  Several of my Pre-Calc kids kept marveling, "How did you find something so...perfect?" (I love my nerds.)  In addition to the ten drawers, there's also a flat surface on the top, which I've used a lot, too.

I'm certain I'm not the first to have discovered this gem-cart, but I still thought I'd pass along the wonderful news.  Here's a picture of my cart with its labels.  My cart was fairly cheap ($30 at Walmart), but I think it will hold up just fine.

If you go get one, you can even use my labels that took me a whole sixty seconds to make:

Labels for Colored Cart by