Collaboration

We’ve taken a little break from partner work in our class.  Increasingly our struggles with problem solving were getting all tangled up.  Instead of feeling frustrated because working with partners is hard, I felt too many of the students were starting to blame math for the problem and I didn’t want that feeling to perpetuate.  We took some time to do some worksheets *GASP* alone – mostly because I needed a bit more data to feel confident about assigning letter grades on report cards.  Geometry has been the focus of these.  We also took some time to loop back to patterning because this seems to be an area where lots of people hadn’t made a connection between patterning and using an open number line to add numbers.  I think we are there now!

Before we dive into our next unit (Trades, Jumps and Stops from the Context for Learning kits by Cathy Fosnot), I’m going to take some time next week to do some work on the collaboration part.  I have been assigning partners all year.  We’ve talked a lot about why I am choosing those particular partners for everyone.  Now it is time for them to make some choices of their own and I will also be asking them to justify those choices and articulate what makes a good partners.

Once partnerships are established, partnerships last for a month.  They stick together for every part of our day when they might need a partner – writing, reading, science, math and anything else. We will be working on building our collaboration skills all day long.  Specifically in math, I am going to ask everyone to do a “turn and talk” with their partner during each Number Talk.  Usually we do what I think most people do:  I put up a problem, kids work them out alone, then we discuss them together.  I think the turn and talk time will help them practice actually talking to their partner about how to solve the problems.  They will be empty handed, so they can focus on talking about the math instead of arguing about who will be using the marker to write it down.

The second thing I am going to do is create some problems for everyone to solve.  Today we are going to do an activity from The Super Source where partners work together on some describing and listening skills.  One builds a design using no more than pattern blocks. The second partner is not allowed to see this.  The first partner describes the design that was built so the second partner can recreate it.  It’s a tricky exercise for 7 year olds, believe it or not.  Positional language,  attributes of geometric shapes, and expanding on one’s own words are all practiced.  I find that the person describing often reverts to giving directions such as “get a triangle and put it on top of the square…no that way…no that way…no down…YES!”    The other problems are going to involve some addition, maybe some subtraction and will be put in a context they can work with.

The final thing I really need to work on is how to respectfully disagree, and how to accept that “No, I don’t think so” isn’t the same as “I hate your guts and will never speak to you again!”  It’s a hard one, but necessary.

I had initially planned for next week to be the start of my next unit.  But I’m feeling better about this plan of action.  It’s going to help us have a smoother run through the unit, and it is going too help me set up the Math Workshop groups we’ll need during the unit.

Update: Assessment

I’m interviewing everyone in my class to make sure my report cards are up to date and accurate. It’s been very telling!

I often get one-on-one time with students, but they are usually at different places in their work. During the interview, I’m asking the same 6-8 questions, and talking about the strategies the kids use from beginning to answer. One question in particular is standing out because so far my friends fall into 3 categories.

The question is: I have 7 crackers, you have 9 crackers. How many do we have altogether?

One child said, without pause, “16.” This child was confident, and didn’t falter at all when I asked how he’d gotten the answer so quickly. “I just know things like that.” When I asked other questions he was equally confident and had very efficient strategies.

Another child, same question: “…mumble…mumble…it’s…16?!” I asked for an explanation. “Well, I know 9 is almost 10, so make it 10, then 10+6…yeah…16.” Earlier in the year this child told me he solved problems by reading my mind until he found the answer. I’d say he’s made excellent progress in his meta cognitive and communication skills!

Another child, same question: “….2?” I repeat the question. “7!!!!” I repeat the question. “9!” I take a handful of counters out of the nearby basket & make a pile of 7, and a pile of 9. Then I say, “These are mine. I have 7. These are yours. You have 9. How many altogether?” Response: “If I take away 2, then we’re even!” And “Is it almost time to eat?”

So I put the counters away and write on a piece of paper “7+9” and the child says 16. Rote memorization for the win!

There are three things going on here, and if I made each of these three the team captain I’d have no trouble finding people in the class with similar thinking to fill their teams. Each of the other questions I’m asking further shows the thinking behind the answers I’m getting from the class, including showing me the preferred strategies each child has. It’s so much more interesting than just getting a worksheet filled with answers.

Another One About Reporting

As the end of Winter Break approaches, it’s time for me to sit down and do some planning for the coming weeks.  Reports cards are due at the end of the month and I need to get all of my assessments up to date and my comments organized.  The report card should reflect what the child is capable of at that time, not what they were doing 2 or 3 months ago. I last formally reported on everyone in November. I know there has been growth for everyone, some big and some small.

For math assessment, I am going to re-do the interview I used in September.  I know that for some children I can start in a different place because they have shown mastery in areas I previously assessed.  I will have to go beyond where I left off with them because they have shown growth toward the end of year goals. I also need to add in some geometry and data management questions so I can report accurately on that as well.  I have a lot of anecdotal notes to draw from, but I want to be really sure of what they can do now.

As I have been reflecting on this, I am struck once again with how hard it is to divide math into 5 strands.  I suppose it is easy in the Primary grades to do that with Geometry, Data Managment/Probability and Measurement.  But even at this point they are all starting to blend together. Everything we learn in Number Sense is related to everything we learn in Patterning and Algebra.  I can hardly decide how to mark everyone sometimes because I’m not always sure if the things they need to build understanding about exist in one strand of the curriculum document or another.  I have to consult it every time because in my mind it’s all mashed together into “math”. Everything we do in Number Sense is related to what we do in Measurement too, but it’s a little easier to seperate out the skills that will be reported on.  Same for Geometry and Data Management/Probablity.

Here is one example of this from the Grade 2 curriculum document (2005):

• identify and describe, through investigation, growing patterns and shrinking patterns generated by the repeated addition or subtraction of 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 25’s on a number line and on a hundreds chart (e.g., the numbers 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10 are
• count forward by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 25’s to 200, using number lines and hundreds charts, starting from multiples of 1, 2, 5, and 10 (e.g., count by 5’s from 15; count by 25’s from 125);
• count backwards by 1’s from 50 and any number less than 50, and count backwards by 10’s from 100 and any number less than 100, using number lines and hundreds charts (Sample problem: Count backwards from 87 on a hundreds carpet, and describe any patterns you see.);

Two of those are from the Number Sense strand and one is from P/A.  But I teach them simultaneously. And if a child is having trouble with skip counting is it because s/he isn’t understanding the patterns associated with the skip counting, or is having trouble memorizing the order, and if they seem to not be having any trouble is there some rote counting, or is the child processing the numbers and thinking about the patterns?  It’s tricky to assess sometimes. And sometimes it isn’t. For instance, if a child can say, “2, 4, 6, 8, 10” but then stops and can’t figure out what comes next, I know the first 5 terms are acutally just counted by rote. Or if a child can count by 2’s even further, but then isn’t able to do this when there are actual things to be counted, I know there has been some memorizing. And if a child gets to ten, then pauses to work it out in his head, comes up with 12, then slowly with 14, and so on, I know there is some understanding.  It’s tricky to boil all of that down to a letter grade.

Someday when I open my own school and can make my own rules, I am not going to assign letter grades to Primary kids ever. The report cards at my school will be all about the comments.  And I will definitely not divide math up to strands!  But for now, I’ll sit down and go through my assessment and the curriculum documents, then I’ll sit down with everyone in the next 2 weeks or so and ask them the questions I’m wondering about.  And then I’ll sit down and give them all a grade that reflects what they can do.  Easy, right?