The Rookery

Today my exploration math class did something unusual – we spent almost all of class on the computers.  In this time of screen ubiquity, Prairie Creek has been careful about how it uses technology.  There's a lot of junk out there.  A screen can't substitute for the rich experiences of a classroom.  But sometimes, there is a resource that warrants class time.  Solveme Mobiles is that kind of experience.  Why?

First of all, students didn't work in an isolated bubble.  Before we went on the site, we re-visited our math conversation stems.  These sentence starters were developed by Prairie Creekers to help them explore math ideas together.  It's in the explaining that we solidify ideas enough to generalize them to new situations.  Sometimes, until we have to tell someone else what we did — we aren't really sure ourselves.  Additionally, students are always encouraged to seek out the "Oh!" moments that grow their brains.  This is how I often talk about the growth mindset – we celebrate the opportunities to have those epiphanies when a misconception clears and we figure something new out.

When I asked students about working with a partner versus working alone on the puzzles they shared things like, "I liked working with someone else because with two brains, we didn't stay stuck."  "I could ask my partner when something didn't make sense."  "We could help each other understand."

Secondly, we choose our technology carefully.  Solveme is an exceptionally well crafted math experience.  The puzzles are structured so that they reveal the underlying mathematics.  The numbers they've chosen lead to a deeper understanding (and also encourage fact fluency).  One of the most valuable aspects of a computer is that it can provide immediate feedback.  In the case of Solveme, they've gone a step further.  The feedback becomes self-correction because students can see when they have created an imbalanced system before they even click "submit."  They can know immediately what part of their thinking isn't working yet.  Maria Montessori constructed all of her learning materials to provide immediate self-correction but surprisingly few apps use it.

The algebra in Solveme is presented as a puzzle.  Students are given some information and challenged to figure out the rest.  In the process, they intuit a lot of the skills that will make it easier to solve abstract equations.  I purposefully did not provide any instruction before they began.  I didn't even explain how to interpret the problems.  Children are natural puzzlers and they figured it out.  In the process, their trial and error gave them a much richer context than my direct instruction would have.  (Another "puzzle it out" algebra app that I recommend is Dragonbox 5+)

Finally, students were able to pace themselves.  They all started in a comfortable place and built incrementally on to what they understood.  No one went beyond their zone of proximal development (which isn't to say they weren't challenged…they were challenged in that Goldilocks "just right" zone.)Tomorrow we'll do some pencil and paper work that reinforces the concepts (and helps to connect them to some bigger ideas in algebra.)  They'll have the confidence to tackle these new ideas because they were successful today.