BTC - Day 2

Changed it up a bit today.

Instead of vertical white boards,

The white boards were horizontal on the tables.

We completed the four 4's problem today.

Students worked in their table groups,

Before sharing in the whole group discussion their answers for 1-20.

What I Observed:

1. More individual thinking today.  But it could have been the nature of the problem. We discussed that math takes on many forms and if someone wants some quiet time to first work on a problem, we will respect that.

2. The whole group discussion is vital for moving thinking.  As students shared their answers on how to get the various numbers, students were taking what they were learning from the others to help them complete expressions for the missing solutions.

3. During the hour that had only 70% of the students thinking yesterday, today 100% were on board!  Before we began the whole group discussion, I told them what I had observed and that I wanted their feedback as to why the change.  They came up with two ideas: 1) A different problem was used that might have been more engaging for them, 2) Different groups...or friends were not with friends this time.  This second observation was a perfect segway into making choices to be on task and work with others when the groupings match up best of friends.  Our conversation led to using self-control and doing the right thing in the moment.  We shall see how that translates down the road with future lessons.

Changes Made:

• We did not do random groups but worked as table groups.
• Used horizontal boards instead of vertical...to allow for more solutions to come through in the whole group discussion.
• Instructions were given with the students sitting down and there were lots more questions than I had yesterday when they were standing.
• Gave instructions from the south side of the room, but the whole group discussion was focused on the east side of the room.  Defronting?  Maybe????