In July, I attended the Building Thinking Classrooms Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. It was absolutely amazing, yet very overwhelming. There is just so much to learn! When I left the conference, I was feeling empowered about building my thinking classroom for Algebra 1 this year, instead of "dabbling" as I had done in the past. I am now one month into the school year, and I have so much to learn!!
As luck would have it, I had another opportunity to attend a workshop with Peter Liljedahl at a local high school. This opportunity came at the perfect time for me. Though much of it repeated a lot of what I have seen and heard before, I now have some experience. I would say that my practice has been, at best, hit or miss. There are just so many nuances that I have been floundering over. Attending this workshop has helped me to identify what I'm missing and what I can do to improve.
When I returned to school today, we were learning about slope. I started with a task that I modified from a Math Medic activity, which can be found HERE. This allowed us to explore rates of change and we connected it to the slope of a line. Our second task, with a new group (something I picked up in Friday's workshop), was focused on using the slope formula that students had learned last year. They worked through the thin-sliced problems and it was great! I was able to walk around and give help where needed. I consolidated by doing the "sort these three problems" conversation, which was pretty quick, then we went off to take notes. I am NOT doing the four quadrant notes at this point. One of the best parts about this particular modality of instruction is that it is not necessary to go all in with all fourteen practices. I am picking and choosing which ones work for me and my students and doing the four-quadrant notes is not in that list quite yet, never mind the fourth toolkit!
Thank you to Bethlehem High School and to Peter Liljedahl for another great workshop! I'm sure we will meet again!
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| Algebra 1 students and rate of change |
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| Me and Peter L. |
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