Building a Thinking Classroom Together: February 

From Becky, 

“What do you consider one of your biggest “wins” in your classroom since you have started implementing BTC?”

I have two “wins” that compete for first place. 

Participation: Class is fascinating now! I often pause and listen, in awe, to my students talk with each other about math. I have been doing this for several years now and it still strikes me as amazing. Students from all kinds of math identities participate and contribute to the tasks I give them. Groups jump right into the task and are willing to try something, even if they don’t know what to do. Students who typically misbehave in other classes get invested in the lessons and rarely find room to misbehave. Don’t get me wrong, I still teach real kids and they still need redirecting, but the majority of the students during the majority of the period are actively doing math.

Retention: I have the privilege to teach all of the 9th graders, all of the 11th graders and many of the seniors in my school. This means I see each student at least twice in their high school careers. I know what they learned in Algebra 1 and can build off of that in Algebra 2 and College Algebra. I have noticed a big change in students’ retention of previous learning when I see them again. I am often prepared to reteach previous knowledge based on my past experience. But, in the last couple of years, when I give students tasks to do, they bring up the previous learning themselves. I seldom have to review, much less reteach, in order to teach the day’s lesson!

The Thinking Classroom practices have changed my entire room. I can’t imagine going back to how I taught before. I want to share it with anyone and everyone who will listen, so I am excited that the Thinking Classroom is going to be a focus of this year’s Spring Conference. Besides our keynote being Peter himself, we have several sessions being offered by educators around the state who have been trying the 14 practices. If you haven’t registered yet, do it today! Click here to register.

***I am looking for more topics and questions to discuss. If you have a question about the Thinking Classroom, or if you have a story or success that you would like to share, please send me your question in this google form. 

Until next time, keep on building! Together we will build a generation of thinkers.

Jessica Strom
Win-E-Mac School
MCTM High School Vice-President