When We Must Focus On Things OTHER Than Math

We had started a new unit.

The discovery problem had them stumped. 

Student literally could not even find themselves into the problem. 

We pulled out hands-on resources.

I encouraged them to draw pictures.

They were still stumped...

And more concerning, started to shut down.

So the next day, we had a little conversation.

A conversation on what we could do to help ourselves when we got stuck.

I created the anchor chart,

And students told me what to fill in.

Interestingly, all my classes except one listed "Ask for Help" as the very first thing to do.

In that one lone class, asking for help was second from the bottom.

It was almost like an after thought,

Oh!  We could ask for help!

In the days and weeks that followed,

I found myself referring to this chart a bunch.

As students checked out,

I would have them pick something from the left side of the list to try instead.

As students struggled through and eventually became successful,

We looked at the strategies they had implemented to get them to move their thinking.

Today, as I pondered our lesson at the vertical white boards,

I knew there could be points where students jumped back on the struggle bus.

And then I remembered reading in BTC about how to promote this in the classroom. 

Chapter 12.

What We Choose to Evaluate in the Thinking Classroom.

While I didn't give a grade on their performance,

We used these ideas to guide us again through the daily process of learning new material.

I created this chart that I will have ready to use

So students can visually assess where they were when struggling through the problem solving process.