Do you ever have one of those moments where you pull something out of thin air, it works, and you keep it forever?
Scenario: Friday a week ago, my 5th period class arrived eager to learn (ha) after I had spent my entire morning (including my planning period) in a meeting with the state dept. I had nothing prepared that I needed for their lesson. So, on a whim, I created a game to help them practice graphing sine and cosine waves. That day we used IXL.com with my Mimio. In the pictures you see below, I had already pulled out this same game for another class. That day we used Kuta Software's presentation mode and good old-fashioned dry erase markers.
This particular game works best for graphing, but I'm sure some of you will find applications in other ways--please share!
Scenario: Friday a week ago, my 5th period class arrived eager to learn (ha) after I had spent my entire morning (including my planning period) in a meeting with the state dept. I had nothing prepared that I needed for their lesson. So, on a whim, I created a game to help them practice graphing sine and cosine waves. That day we used IXL.com with my Mimio. In the pictures you see below, I had already pulled out this same game for another class. That day we used Kuta Software's presentation mode and good old-fashioned dry erase markers.
This particular game works best for graphing, but I'm sure some of you will find applications in other ways--please share!
Post a problem on the board. Use whatever tool you have to randomly draw a student's name. I have all my students' names on index cards, so I used that. That student gets to add one dot, draw one continuous stroke, or erase one item. (If using IXL, one tap of the pen is a turn, whether it adds a point, removes a point, changes lines, etc.) Then I draw another name, and they get a turn. If the person before messes up, then one erased dot counts as a turn. (See picture below where I wrote the rules for them. We were graphing quadratics, so the "5 points" means the graph must have 5 dots. I probably should have said 5 dots.)
We continue this pattern of drawing names and making one addition to the graph or one erasure from the graph until a student is satisfied the graph is complete or correct on their turn. They can click submit if using IXL or hand me the marker--that's my signal. When using Kuta, I click "show answer," and it displays the correct graph. All we have to do is check that it coincides with the students. The whole class gets one bonus point for each graph we complete correctly.
Ground rules: I have my students sitting in pairs already, so I allowed them to collaborate with their partner and only their partner. If they collaborated with anyone else, I would toss that question, and we start over on a new one, delaying the accumulation of points for the whole class. So far, the most points any class has accrued in a 52-55 min class is 4 points. It's slower than I originally expected. To speed up the process, I would go ahead and draw the next name and announce who was "on deck."
I LOVED how every student was engaged. Not knowing when their name would be called meant they had to be ready, AND the fact that everyone was working on the same problem meant they had to comprehend what had happened ahead of them. Plus, this requires no advance prep from me. Go to IXL or generate some Kuta questions in a flash. It was beautiful!
I LOVED how every student was engaged. Not knowing when their name would be called meant they had to be ready, AND the fact that everyone was working on the same problem meant they had to comprehend what had happened ahead of them. Plus, this requires no advance prep from me. Go to IXL or generate some Kuta questions in a flash. It was beautiful!