"Love is a fire. But whether it will warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell." --Joan Crawford A year and half ago, when I committed to seating my students in visibly random groups on the first day of school and every day thereafter, I didn't know if this new, curious practice I had read about just three days ago would warm my hearth or burn down my house. Both possibilities seemed equally likely. I mean, is it even possible to be a teacher and not have a seating chart? For my entire career, a seating chart has been lauded as the all-in-one solution for:
I digress. When I read about the practice of visibly random groups in Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, the reasoning made perfect sense and I decided to do it on the spot. And it has been true love ever since. Visibly random groups - how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 1. All Of the Kids Know each OtherBoth years that I've used visibly random groups, I've taught 6th grade - the first year in a middle school in my district. The kids start the year terrified that they aren't going to know anybody or be able to make any friends. That's always the story at Open House - "he/she is really nervous about making friends."
2. The Kids don't fall into work identity rolesWhen kids are seated in long-term groups via a seating chart, one of two things happens when it comes to group or collaborative work. One possibility is that, over time, they fall into "roles." All right, we all know Suzie is going to take charge and tell everybody what to do, so there is no point in anyone else trying to lead. And we also know Lisa isn't going to do anything, Heather will come up with the ideas, ...." and so on. Stay together long enough, and everyone knows their part (or that they don't have to do a part because others will cover), and they just fall into those habits. They simply carry out their "role" in the group dynamic.
3. No seating chart games or resentmentMuch like the roles, the kids catch onto the social games we play with seating charts, too. "I see what's going on here - he's put me clear across the room from my best friend so I won't talk or pass notes with her, and next to the bad kid so that she doesn't have anybody to get going with, just like every teacher always places me. So, as usual, I'll pass notes with the bestie when I pretend to go get a Kleenex four times a day and I have to make sure this bad kid does even worse so he'll move her away from me. Game plan... go!"
4. It's FunFinding out where they'll sit is actually a small, exciting event each day! Where will I sit? And who will end up next to me? It's nice to start class off with a little anticipation. Plus, my class has gotten pretty into figuring out the card tricks that Liljedahl recommends as non-curricular thinking tasks, so I've tried to learn a little sleight of hand to make the kids smile when they get their cards and to make card tricks a little bigger part of our identity. 5. The Kids Learn How "Random" WorksThe idea of randomness is not an easy one for the human brain to comprehend, and it becomes particularly important in understanding certain elements of math at some point. Over the course of the year, I get to see the kids gradually learn that "random" doesn't mean "always different." One of the kids recently got a 9 five days in a row! It was a great opportunity to develop that understanding that randomness can include such an outcome. One of the cards also gives one lucky student the highly coveted teacher desk for the day, which I've explained to them, they should get once every 30 days on average. One of them just got to sit there for the first time on something like the 70th day of school, and we got to talk about that, too. Randomness is not easily understood, and doing this type of grouping over the long-term gives them a great, tangible experience with it. 6. Some Kids Who Don't Like Math Like Math ClassThis is partly attributable to the Thinking Classrooms philosophy as a whole, but I have more kids this year than ever who would tell you that they don't really like math, but they like math class. They know everybody, they get to sit with and work with their friends every few days, they're up and active - they like the feel and flow of the class even if they don't necessarily love the content. Just this week, I had a girl tell me "math isn't my favorite subject, but it's my favorite class. The time passes so fast every day." That's a big deal if you're a math teacher. Math causes all sorts of problems for all sorts of people. It makes a lot of kids absolutely miserable year after year after year. A willingness to be content and happy there is a major, major, MAJOR upgrade for a whole lot of kids. Math literally has its own corner of the anxiety market. Anything that makes kids feel less of that is a service to society, and I really feel like the social upgrade of visibly random groups has a lot to do with it for me. Look at these people! Smiling! In math class! A Change That Can Be Made OVernight!One of my favorite things about visibly random grouping is that it is the rare change that can be made in any classroom overnight. There's nothing to learn, nothing to practice, nothing to study. You can just... do it. I did this last year without any other Thinking Classrooms practices. I did it when I taught science, too. Any teacher can have these benefits tomorrow. I love you, visibly random groups. You have warmed the hearth of my classroom. Until death (or at least retirement) do us part. If you enjoyed this post, please share it! Want to read more right now? You can browse past posts by category
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On Friday, I wrapped up a six-week unit introducing ratios, rates, and percentages to my sixth graders. If you've been following my thinking classroom progress, this unit started right around the time when I figured out that I need to back up and focus on sequencing my implementation of the Thinking Classrooms Practices, and I've been able to report a few breakthrough days since (this one and this one). Since those breakthroughs, I've had day-in-and-day-out routine success - a stretch of days where almost every one has been predictably successful. I don't want to overstate how nice it is to be "stuck" in a routine where the kids are on a roll and where each day's thinking task is leading to real, deep, and lasting learning that I can count on. I was really, really good at running a mimicking classroom, and there were days earlier this year where I never thought I'd get back to that comfort level in a Thinking Classroom.
I talked a lot about success with those in a recent post, and I've had further growth with them since. My examples in that post all involved asking questions about a pre-existing, naturally engaging situation. In the weeks since, however, I've had the same benefit from just creating lists of questions that stand on their own. Here are some examples.
As you can probably see, they're just questions! Nothing special - just straight-forward math to think about, and it's working wonders. Most days, the kids are leaving class with a decent command of the day's topic, and I can just touch it up with some maintenance during recall practice in the upcoming days (or, of course, extend upon it for the next topic).
Finally having some success with this, here, I think, is what I 've learned about creating curricular tasks. 1. "You Can ALready.... But What ABout...."I wish I could remember who I learned this from so I could cite it properly, but I don't. At some point in the past, I learned to always introduce today's learning topic in the form of "you can already ________, but what about _______?" For example, the three days of thinking tasks transitioning from ratio thinking to percentages were introduced like this: Introducing Percentage Thinking (Day 1) Finding A Missing Part In Percent Problems (Day 2) Finding A Missing Whole In Percent Problems
2. The Magic Is In The MildAs I create, implement, and reflect on the success or failure of these thinking tasks day in and day out, I've come to believe that success is all in making the mildest questions really mild - in setting the floor really low. If the opening, mild questions are well crafted so that the kids can access today's new topic entirely using math they already know, they gain confidence and get into that flow-state almost instantly. I almost never have students give up because the later, spicier tasks are too hard. If they give up, it is because I made the mild tasks too hard and they couldn't get any momentum.
3. If I want It Done Right, I have To DO It MyselfUnfortunately, I haven't found a way around an unfortunate truth: if I want these tasks done right, I have to do them myself. I see a lot of advice in the BTC community spaces recommending AI or good websites for curricular tasks for generating the questions, but I haven't found that those produce the results I'm looking for. I know my state standards, I know where I want the lesson to take the kids, and I know content well enough to know what represents the next level of "spiciness," which means I have to create the tasks more days than not. This isn't to say I never use resources from elsewhere, but I pretty much always write the questions. Yes, it takes a long time. Yes, it is tedious. Yes, I wish I had a plug-and-play set of questions or a dependable resource bank made by someone who thinks about curricular tasks the way I do. So far, however, all of my best results are coming when I sit down every day and I write the d*&$ questions myself. I can't Believe This Works
If sliced thin (and strategically) enough, the kids are engaged in minutes and often throttle through 2-3 days of content before they know what happened. This run of success has been a much-needed one. I owe it all to thin-sliced curricular tasks. If you enjoyed this post, please share it! Want to read more right now? You can browse past posts by category
If you enjoyed this post, please share it! Want to read more right now? You can browse past posts by category
If you enjoyed this post, please share it! Want to read more right now? You can browse past posts by category
In a post a few weeks back, following a period of struggle, disaster, and almost giving up on building a thinking classroom, I outlined how I came to the conclusion that I needed to temporarily cease certain practices while I focused on getting others in tip-top shape. Late in the book, Liljedahl presents a diagram ordering the practices in a certain way: I evaluated my progress, and decided to cease the third set of practices entirely while I shored up those in the second set: For any other readers who are in the process of building a thinking classroom of their own and struggling with it, I would strongly recommend this approach. It worked wonders for me, gave me much more peace of mind, and I really did improve my practice quickly when I was only focusing on improving one thing at a time. My recent posts, if you follow, have been much more positive, and my progress has been rapid. I've learned to respond only to "keep-thinking" questions (or to answer a "stop-thinking" question with a "keep-thinking" answer). My task launches are now standing, verbal, and clustered. As I mentioned, I had forgotten about that practice completely, and making the change to launching thinking tasks in this way was instant, powerful, and easy. The energy in the room transforms entirely. I've also eased into the mobilizing knowledge practice. My kids don't seem to want or need that one all that often, but I really like it when I do get the chance to do so. My last two posts (this one and this one) both discussed the success I've had with the use hints and extensions to maintain flow practice, and that success has continued since. I'll tell you what, too, getting the hints and extensions practice down REALLY makes it feel like a thinking classroom. The rest of the third set, I think, will augment that as well. So my list of practices is starting to look pretty good! I'll be honest, though, I've been dreading the next two. My experiences with trying them before I was ready were abysmal, and both strike me as really challenging. But it was time to start one this week. I chose the note-making practice first because I heard a wonderful interview with Liljedahl where he outlined a bunch of new thinking on this practice that isn't in the book.
I tell you, these third-set practices really make it feel like a thinking classroom. The kids think (and keep thinking) if I keep them in "flow," and then the note-making practice, with this new format, makes them keep thinking for another 15 minutes. It is incredible. Truly. If you're building (or improving) your own thinking classroom, I'd highly recommend the podcast episode above. The new insight and format on the note-making strategy really pops and wasn't hard to implement. Another week, another huge step forward. The only bad news is - I'll shortly have no choice but to get into the practice I've long feared most - consolidation. If you enjoyed this post, please share it! Want to read more right now? You can browse past posts by category
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About MeI'm an award-winning teacher in the Atlanta area with experience teaching at every level from elementary school to college. Categories |