Better Questions: Can You Help Me?

There were many prompts to get this week's task going, and this one has hit me hard recently, and not just in math class: "Mr. Hulitt, can you help me?" Simple, right?  Let's resume the convo:

Sure, what do you need?
I don't know what to do
What don't you know what to do?
Number 7
Ok, what don't you know about number 7?
I don't know what to do

Many of our students want the easy way out.  They have been programmed since school age to be robotic answer-finders.  Give them a formula, tell them what numbers to use, plug it into a calculator, and bam(!), there's your answer.

The idea of learned helpless is plaguing our classrooms.  Without the need to rehash posts from this, this and this, I will add that the Math Practice Standards aim to curtail learned helplessness and promote better thinking in class.  Specifically MP1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.  I've found that low entry high ceiling tasks do this exactly.  That's the beauty of Estimation180, Visual Patterns, and Which One Doesn't Belong.  Also, Jo Boaler and NRich have more examples that expand this concept.

Have you used anything in particular?  How did it go? Please share!

My Favorite

Imagine if Pear Deck, Nearpod, and Socrative had a mobile whiteboard,  ipad mirroring and remote access to your computer.  Sounds too good to be true, except it is!  Meet Annotate.  I have been using it the past year and could not live without it.  Let them explain what it does:



I find the mobile whiteboard, ipad mirroring and remote access to be game changers for the classroom.  With the mobile whiteboard, I am no longer tied to the front of the room writing whatever is projected.  Ipad mirroring is great to display apps or show the students how to do something with their ipads.  And remote access to my computer allows me to control my computer from my ipad.

Let me explain how I use this.  If I'm projecting a pdf, I'll import it to my account via their web-based software, then I need to open a program on my computer.  This will link my ipad to my computer.  From my ipad, I open the imported pdf and tap Project and it will show on my projector

web-based program

computer software

iPad view

  

Projected view

Annotate is great for mirroring my iPad.  Again, I need to open the computer software and make sure my PC and ipad are on the same network.  Then I swipe to the control panel on my ipad and tap Airplay.  Tap my name and it's as easy as that.  Here's the iPad and projected view:

iPad

Projected view

Lastly, I normally use Annotate as remote access to my computer to draw on my Keynote slides.  I prefer to use Keynote as their animations, notes and next slide view are key parts of my presentation.  If I upload the pdf's and project them, it looses what is integral for me.  Here's what I see from my iPad as Annotate is in Remote:

Their customer service is top notch as I had a recommendation to add a Secondary display to preview.  They quickly added it in and now I can easily tap between display views so I can see my notes for the slide and what is coming up next.

Here's an example of drawing on my slide from my ipad as I walked around the room and what the students see projected.

Annotate does much more than I have described.  I'm still trying to work in how I can use the other features as it's difficult since we're not a 1:1 school.  

Without a doubt, Annotate is easily My Favorite!  Let me know how it goes when you give it a try.

Week 1: One Good Thing: "What? Do you think I'm a math person?!"

During our warm up the other day, the students were presented with this:


While I was observing the students working, I asked one about 4x=32.  He told me the correct answer and I then asked how he got that.

Well, I know that four times eight is 48.
Makes sense.  What if you had something that looks like 4x=44?
11
Why?
Four times 11 is 44
Ok, how about 4x=72?
<Working on the calculator> 18!
How do you know?
Four times 18 is 72
Ok, how about 4x=244?
What?!  Do you think I'm some sort of math person!?

Yes! He had the headache and wanted aspirin!  We then talked about how he solved the addition and subtraction problems above.  He said that he did the opposite of whatever the problem was asking.  I asked him what's the opposite of multiplication and he told it was dividing.   He used his calculator and did four divided by 244.  He thankfully realized that .016 is incorrect, so he did it the other way around and got 61.  We did another problem to see if it worked again and it did.  He felt very satisfied and proud of his work.  The lightbulb turned on and he finally understands one-step equations.

Welcome to the Math Person Club!