I'm currently teaching 13 year olds in Secondary One mathematics and was wondering how to engage the 13 year olds in meaningful and interesting maths learning. Do give me some ideas please... Thanks!
Three ideas:
1. Consider making a class wiki and a different student or students takes notes every day. You could also use the wiki as extra credit for students who want to update it periodically. I have three students who update it regularly (for extra credit) and they take turns so it is not too much work.
2. Consider a group activity or group project once a week (and possibly count it as a quiz). If you use the CPM math text, they have lots of information about how to do group quizzes and the role for each member of the group.
3. I am going to experiment with reversing instruction and homework. If I can get the kids to watch a 10-15 minute instructional video AS HOMEWORK, then we can do the homework in class together. This also paves the way for more projects.
Permalink Reply by greg on February 22, 2009 at 5:02pm
Hi Thomas,
One activity that I do with my students that really engages them, is to bring them to the computer lab and have my students work on games and other interactive websites. To make this easy, I just print a page from my website and have the students call me over when they are done with the activity. I stamp their papers and they work on the next online activity. I am happy to share my materials with you, just go to my classroom website, http://schools.u-46.org/index.pl?op=show&iid=2990 and click on the grade level you teach. For 13 years olds, you might want 7th or 8th grade. My students always ask when the next time we are going to do this, which means they really like to go to the computer lab.
I hope you can find something that will help your students.
Greg
You might poke around the Math Forum for some interesting ideas. They have a "problem of the week" subscription that is very inexpensive and gives you access to high quality and fun problems and guides for the classroom. But there are lots of free things on the site.