Make the Last Weeks of Math Productive and Fun!
A MiddleWeb Blog
Before we finished our final benchmark test, my plan for these last few weeks of school was to get caught up on my pacing guide and do some “serious” teaching.
Instead, we have had an academic signing day, a faculty basketball game, a talent show, and more! (Good activities, but not serious teaching!)
All these interruptions to *My Plan* started to really stress me out. I know the end of the school year is hectic – it was unrealistic to make such rigid plans. However, despite the interruptions, I still wanted to be productive and I wanted my students to continue learning.
It came to me eventually that I also want to enjoy the last few weeks I will have these students. So I decided to create a new plan that keeps my students learning, and helps all of us appreciate the final days of school together. Here is what I decided to do.
Try out some new “fun” things
Desmos – I have talked about Desmos (an online graphing calculator complete with lots of digital math activities) before. In the next few weeks I plan to try out some new activities, using my students as guinea pigs to help me pilot favorites for the upcoming school year.
Specifically I plan to do “Mini-Golf Marbleslides” which is an activity that helps students practice graphing coordinates within a carpet golf simulation. Even though I’m using this in Algebra 2 (mostly 11th graders), this would be great activity for middle school students or possibly even younger students.
If all goes well when I try it next week, I’m planning to use the mini-golf activity at the start of school next fall as a focusing activity for my new Algebra 2 students. It will be a good review for them and help get them acquainted with the Desmos platform.
MAP Formative Assessment Lessons – The FAL collection at the Mathematics Assessment Project includes 100 high quality tasks (ranging from 6th grade to high school). The tasks are designed to both help teachers assess their students’ mastery of content while also deepening students’ conceptual understanding.
The specific task I want to try is related to probability – “Representing Probabilities: Medical Testing.” This is a “high school” lesson, but there is a FAL dealing with probability for seventh graders titled, “Designing a Game of Chance,” which looks interesting. (Use the tabs in the left column of the webpage to explore more than 60 Gr. 6-8 tasks by category.)
Quizlet Live – I have used Quizlet in my classroom before but I haven’t had a chance to try out the live experience. The Quizlet Live version randomly groups students into teams of four (with cute names like sea dragons and alpacas) and has them work together to find the correct answer to a pre-selected quizlet. There’s even a playoff option.
For every quizlet problem, only one person in the group has the correct answer on their screen so they have to work together to get the right answer. There are paid and free quizlets, I plan to use the free quizlets.
Get Feedback from Students
Student Surveys. End of year student surveys can provide great feedback. Honestly, I’m always a little anxious about having students fill these out. I’ve developed a thicker skin since I started teaching 13 years ago, but I can still get my feelings hurt! Fortunately, students usually give helpful and tactful feedback.
When I make my end of year survey, I usually take a few questions from several different surveys (see below). My surveys vary from year to year. This year I am interested in whether or not my students felt comfortable in my class. Also, this year I have felt that my classroom management needed improvement so I am interested in whether the students felt like the classroom atmosphere was conducive to learning.
For me, this a valuable use of my class time. The feedback I get now will guide my planning and classroom management procedures for next year. Just a logistical note, I put my surveys on Google docs so that I can readily access the surveys from year to year. Here are some surveys that I’ve used as references.
- End of Year Student Survey (Education World)
- Math in 6th Grade; Mr. Biederbeck’s Report Card
- End of School Year Survey (Lisa Bejarano – Crazy Math Lady)
Talk to your students. Student surveys aren’t the only way to get feedback from your students. I plan to just walk around and talk to my students. Maybe I will ask them to give me their opinion about units or lessons, or maybe I will just to talk with them about whatever they feel like talking about. I want to use this time to strengthen relationships as well as repair those relationships that might have become strained during the year.
Ending the year with smiles on our faces
I want to finish the year out in the right way. I don’t want to end the school year stressed out and irritable; I want the last few weeks to be pleasant for my students and me.
Even when things aren’t going exactly according to my plan, we can still keep learning. By trying out new activities now and getting feedback from this year’s students, I can decide what I want to implement next fall and what changes I need to make to lay the groundwork for an even more successful experience with next year’s math students.
Please share in the comments how you navigate the end of the school year and what you do to keep the learning going in your classroom right up to summer break!
These are awesome resources! Thanks for sharing! I know another very popular online resource that teachers use is Kahoot. I feel like I haven’t had the best experiences with it as students get overly competitive, leading to behavioral issues. How do you balance having fun with these resources but not having things being hyper-competitive and chaotic?
I appreciate your input ahead of time as an education student!
I think you’ve brought up a great point. Kahoot can become really competitive and sometimes I think the learning that we intended becomes secondary to the game. I still use Kahoot but I’m selective about how and how often. I mostly use Kahoot when I want to quickly review the previous day’s learning, I limit the questions to ten or fewer. I also want to encourage participation over speed and winning so everyone who answers every question has their name put in a hat and I’ll randomly select 2 or 3 students.
Also, I have found that I need to talk with my students before we play any game and discuss what is acceptable behaviors.
I hope this helps. Good luck!