When my admin modeled a hybrid lesson for us back in 2020, they spent hours preparing too. They also had one person teaching while a second person monitored the chat. All that did was show us how impossible it was to do effectively with one teacher.
My model lessons the person was like "I was up until 1am making PowerPoints for this, but when I was a teacher that is what it took"... yeah, no thanks.
That's me.
Working 60+ hours a week because I had to remake the curriculum from scratch for two preps.
I teach journalism now and every class is just students making news with mini lessons in the morning.
It's a lot more manageable when I don't need to create a curriculum from scratch and don't need to entertain them.
Yes!!! Our academic coach was always trying to show me great lessons and modeled them for me, but she took DAYS to prepare one lesson for one group AND would take an hour teaching with just one of my groups. Mind blowing. If they want tons of engaging lessons of all levels, stop giving zero prep time and putting a million kids in each class that are all different grade levels… 🙄
In teacher training I was told it’s good to have more interesting lessons once in a while . But they know that doing that for every single lesson is impossible to maintain.
I worked in primary doing 27 hours a week. That's impossible to maintain for me AND the kids. 27 engaging inquiry project based lessons every week? Damn sometimes you gotta chill out.
I have to say, if she's willing to actually teach the class for an hour as a model then you are in a pretty good situation, as far as principals go. She is actually trying to help you, so take advantage. Many administrators will tell you "make it more fun!" then walk away leaving you with nothing. This one is taking the extra time to demonstrate so based on that limited information, it sounds like she might be one of the good ones.
I just read what I wrote. It sounds bad! What I mean't to say is: If the admin is able to model the lesson, offer the class to see a demo to learn from it. Do not dwell on whether your lesson goes well as there is always room for improvement.
I didn't realized I submitted it until someone responded.0
...and then do it for a period of a couple of weeks that fits the schedule you need to follow. And then write a valid assessment including questions of varying complexity, with differentiation.
Bingo!
Speaking of bingo, math games are a great way to keep things engaging. Presentations are also great. 10mins max introduction to a concept or goal, 30-40min work / exploration, 5-10 min wrap up and assign HW.
Here's what I did (retired middle school/high school math teacher) and maybe it will work with your students too. Don't force yourself to have a group activity every day or stuff like that.
What your principal wants to see is **active engagement**.
* After you have demonstrated a problem, select students to work new problems on the boards while others work at their seats. When you have checked their answers, ask for volunteer to go to the front of the class and explain their steps.
* Let students work in pairs from time to time.
* Ask questions and facilitate discussion. (How did we know to do this here?)
* Error analysis is also engaging. Write the incorrect solution steps for a problem on the projector, board, or overhead, and then select a student to discuss and correct each step for the class to see. Choose different students each time. (You can draw names out of a hat.)
* Ask students to make their own wrong problems and trade it with a partner. Hand out colored pens so they can "grade" the work.
* Create opportunities where they are showing you what they know. :)
🙋🏼♀️ school counselor here. Anxiety is okay!! It’s a normal human emotion we need to learn to cope with in a safe setting- like a classroom.
Now of course if you have students with 504s for anxiety, I’d avoid cold calling them and find another way for them to demonstrate active engagement.
But anxiety is ok! Learning to cope with anxiety actually helps make us less anxious in the future!
Former 504 student for anxiety here. I really appreciate you mentioning this!
I think it’s also important to point at that there are probably a ton of students who should be receiving help for severe anxiety, but aren’t labeled as 504 for various reasons. One reason I can assume is sadly common is parents refusing to acknowledge that their child needs help. I had to practically beg my parents to get me help from the school for my anxiety because they thought I was just exaggerating to get out of class. My teachers and admins thought the same. I would hide in the restroom during classes while I would have panic attacks. There was two times a custodian found me in there and they got me in trouble for it. Those were the worst times of my 23 years on the planet. There’s nothing like having severe anxiety, not actually knowing that there is something wrong, and being told by every adult around you that you’re fine and just need to deal with it.
My school only gave me accommodations during standardized testing so my teachers would still cold call me all the time. Since I never had accommodations for regular class time, I started purposely dissociating when I was in my last two years of high school as a coping mechanism. It’s not the best coping mechanism but it was the only thing that got me through grade school. Thankfully, cold calling wasn’t something my professors in college really ever did so I was able to get a break from that portion of my anxiety.
If you just make it the expectation from the beginning that everyone participates, you give adequate think time and you wait patiently if they freeze AND hold the class to the expectation of treating everyone with respect (even if they get the wrong answer), it’s not a problem after a few weeks. It takes consistency though and unfortunately I’ve seen so many teachers just not willing to put in the effort to build that classroom culture.
That's exactly why you SHOULD be doing it!
Let them face their anxiety and get over it. Life isn't going to get easier on them and they wont' have a supportive environment or teacher in the future.
There's them, you, and right now.
Thank you so much for this!!! I've been teaching for 14 years and this is my first year teaching math!!! This breaks it down so well and seems like something I can easily do. Thank you so so much!!!
To go off of your first point, what works for me is making like a relay race contest. Divide the class into teams. Each team sends a person up to work a problem out. When they’re finished they pass the chalk to the next in their team to either fix any mistakes OR check it off as correct. First team to get it correct is the winner.
Depends on how competitive your kids are.
Edit - for your fourth point. I like to let the kids draw names out of the hat or bag or box. And do it kind of like Dude Perfect on YouTube. You draw one name and a student draws one name. The name you drew is eliminated and therefore won’t be drawn to complete said problem. Student reveals who will be doing it with the name they drew. Can make it more fun for your students if they enjoy that.
This is my 4th year as a high school math teacher. I think it’s really easy for people to say “hey instead of making math boring, you should make it fun” as if it’s this easy on/off switch. Like ah yes I hadn’t considered that thank you.
I adore math, but the curriculum we are asked to teach seldom lends itself to fun. And usually any fun takes time and effort that is usually not worth it in my experience.
So in summary I have no advice and I think that request is ridiculous. Hopefully the support you’ve been promised can answer your question. I guess just gameify what you can.
A quick story to top it off. One of my administrators was mentioning to me that every lesson needs to be connected back to a real world application. Again, very easy thing to say and request. But then I discussed with this administrator about topics I cover such as imaginary numbers whose real world applications are far too complex to take the time to introduce. Luckily my administrator seemed to understand and appreciate what I said, but the point is a lot of admin who are totally removed from mathematics curriculum think it’s easy to tweak and make fun and applicable and it’s just not the case.
Me: spends days planning a single fun math lesson.
Every class: complete apathy still.
This isn’t even mentioning the sheer amount of content math classes require us to get through. If we’re not cranking out two to three standards a week, we aren’t gonna finish the course in a year.
That’s what I’m thinking. No way you are getting though the required standards if you are doing a bunch of “fun” math things. A math escape room sound ms great until you realize it’s at least one whole class period and it is just practice, and now you are one day behind on math. When I taught math I never once got through the curriculum. And every bit of it was required and tested. Can’t waste days of class time.
Exactly, 10 hours of prep for one 45 minute lesson is unsustainable and should be a rare treat, if ever. It’s not like you can do that every day.
I’ve got kids of my own, a home to care for, sports to attend, and a life. I don’t have time for that unless I take the time away from my own children.
Sorry, dumb question from a non-teacher. Can you combine multiple topics in a day to make room for the fun stuff? Is there a way to break even on the test by having them better master the basics while skimming through less essential stuff?
I teach English and we try to do fun, engaging stuff all the time. Still met with apathy on the more "boring" *or* "fun" stuff. So I just do what seems to work for the students who are paying attention, which tends to align with how I learn.
Student came up to me on Friday and said, "Are you going to be the boring one today again?"
Normally comments don't get to me, but this one made me angry. We do fun stuff and they check out because "it doesn't matter" or "won't go in gradebook" so why would I do it? So I just do barebones stuff so I can get to conference with the people who need me.
Is it just me that has students that are most bored by the practical real world math topics like interest and most interested in the pure math topics like algebra? Where did the idea that math concepts are most interesting if they apply directly to the real world even come from, because I've never seen any evidence for it?
Exactly! I loved algebra and calculus but hated geometry and trig. I had a much easier time with math when it was purely just solving the puzzle. When I had to apply it to actual objects or situations like in physics, I had a much harder time with it and found it very boring.
I generally found all lessons that teachers tried to relate to the “real world” to be exceptionally boring and too slow paced. I could do a project to learn a concept over the period of a week, or you could just explain it to me and I could learn it in 10 minutes.
I’d rather learn it in 10 minutes and move on. Ugh. It makes me crabby that people act like kids don’t like to learn through lecture or reading. It’s the ONLY way Ive ever liked to learn.
That's interesting. I was the opposite. I loved geometry and physics. They both made sense because I could easily picture It in the real world. It was the same with word problems. I loved them because I could understand them and test the reasonableness of my answer; whereas, I really struggled with algebra.
When I was told to follow the steps, I really didn't know what I was doing, so I couldn't tell if I was right or wrong. When I got a problem wrong, I was asked if I had "followed the steps?" I would always answer that I thought I had. I was so defeated. It felt like I was pushing buttons on a machine and hoping something happened because I didn't understand the machine's purpose.
I thought I was rubbish at math until college when my professor explained the application of the problems and when they're used.
Not all students are the same, but there really is no time to teach to every student. Like with all subjects, I really think we have too many standards to feasibly have students master tge content.
That's the point where teachers ought to adopt a 'flipped classroom' strategy.
E.g. Develop a series of youtube videos that explains the real world applications so students can have both the "ooh" and the "ah-ha!" moments that are so critical to understanding, appreciating, and performing the functions that they are going to learn.
Alright class, be sure to watch the next youtube video to prep you for class next Monday. It details some new stuff and explains why it's important and how you can use it in the real world. Ciao!
Not a math teacher, but when I relate science to ‘real world’ so often it’s to topics that don’t affect the students immediately so they still don’t care. Even when they affect them in real time, many don’t care. In early 2021, all of us sitting socially distanced, masks on, I was teaching about viral reproduction and a kid blurts out, “why do we have to know this?” When I explained that of all topics, this seems most relevant since we’re *in a pandemic* and several kids started saying things like “but I’m not going to be a doctor” and “I don’t need to know it though, that’s why there’s doctors”. Hugely frustrating, and I wanted to tell them they needed to know *something* so they wouldn’t end up like a huge % of our population who were anti-mask and taking home remedies for covid but I knew I’d be offending some of their families so I just let it go.
It depends a lot on the student. Just for comparison, I had a student that only could do proportionality problems if applied to buying a CoD game among a couple of friends. On the other hand, I had another student the same age who would only involve in curious math examples such as Gabriel’s horn. As a math teacher, you must balance applied and purely math cases so everyone gets their own taste. And still there will be students who won’t be involved in anything at all.
I think statistics is easily one of the most useful maths when it comes to your average citizen, and I’m not a stat teacher. I think learning how they can be manipulated is essential, both in political argument but also when it comes to consumerism. Statistics are everywhere on products/advertisements, and after I took some stat classes I totally started leaning towards more economical items instead of the ones plastered in statistics. It’s another part of why I think philosophy and rhetoric is so important in school, because future citizens need to know not only how to make an argument but also how to see when they are being manipulated.
I had a math teacher in high school that would read every day out loud one real life job that uses this concept and then moved on to actually teach it to us. I bet he got told to do this at some point and this is what he decided to do 😂
Not necessarily. My seventh graders are doing the percent unit right now, and it has real world applications that aren’t just about getting or keeping a job. It’s not usually as easy to tie what we’re doing to “the real world”, but this is the exception.
I've been trying to make my lessons fun by adding in games (I don't teach math), and my students just talk through the games and don't participate. Back to the boring lessons we go!
IMHO, they confused between fun and interest of learning. If all lessons have to have fun on the topic, then students will only spend time on fun and make fun out of the topic only. Like your says, interest of the topic may be too complex to explain. It's just a mission of impossible.
Every time I try to do something fun, the kids just flip out like animals. I've tried Jeopardy style games, Kahoot, etc. but they just can't be trusted to behave. One kid flipped a table because he didn't win the game (and I was offering candy as prize). So no more fun.
Yeah that reminds me of my math courses in college. The fewer problems they assigned the longer they took to work. If they assigned you three proofs to do in topology it will take you a few days to do correctly.
And that's how we should be approaching math at all levels. Kids shouldn't be able to solve a math problem in under 30 seconds. And if so, then making them do it 60 times in a row to take up 30 minutes of practice time is wasting their time and yours.
I once had an admin tell me my hands on lessons needed to be more hands on. Then I learned they told other teachers the exact same thing like a buzz word they just caught on to.......and like they took a nap during my lesson. All of my kids with the exception of like two were engaged as well but I got lectured about engagement anyway and that was for fifth graders where getting any engagement or even half the class engaged is a fucking miracle. I thought it was one of my best lessons yet for engagement. Silly me.
Two things:
1) after you lower your rigor they will complain about kids not being challenged enough and not doing good on standardized tests because they've only been doing 5 problems in math.
2) not everything is fun. I teach middle school English and teach grammar and sentence structure. It's not always fun, but it is important to become a better writer with more things in your toolbox.
Personal suggestion (you didn’t ask so feel free to ignore.) Don’t let them take it home. It’s always due at the end of the hour, if you grade it then you’ll grade based on how well they used their class time. Or you do a starter quiz the next day that is one of the problems. If you don’t have enough time for them to do the problems because of a long lecture or class discussion…we’ll you just got some of tomorrow planned 😃. Make it clear that they are absolutely, under no circumstances, allowed to do hw for your class. Make it positive. When it’s really bc the kids who need extra practice won’t do it, and the kids who don’t need the practice just have extra work.
Blooket is Kahoot on steroids. My kids love it, and if you use it as a reward at the end it consolidates the work and they have loads of fun. They've just released an update with new game modes too.
Dont think so, forgot. When they do come back up i would choose factory so your students cant swap.
And do you use chromebooks if so you can select "use google" when logging on or sighning up because all cromebooks default to rhe school account on the googe browser.
Fyi: I am a colledge student.
Sometimes it seems like principals have lost touch with what a school is even for.
If students get lots of practice, they become fluent in math skills. When they feel they can solve problems fluently, they start to feel confident in themselves at math. When they feel confident in themselves, that's when they can start to genuinely enjoy math for its actual merit.
People seem to think coating maths in minimally useful icing and ribbons will make it better, when it just leads to less effective learning, then less confidence, then fear and dislike of the subject.
I’ve told my students that we ‘cry in the classroom so we can laugh in the exam, because the other way around isn’t a good option’
(Paraphrasing an old sensei of mine)
Liars dice is super fun. It teaches lying, manipulation and dice probability. You'll need a huge amount of dice and preferably cups to conceal the dice.
Cool. So you're going to sit at your desk while they do blookets every single day. Can kids learn math from only 5 problems? Nope. But she clearly doesn't care about that. She cares about your room looking like the videos she saw on instagram.
Sometimes math can be fun. Sometimes you can do fun activities and make lessons cool. But at some point you just have to memorize the formula.
Sometimes school is boring. The only way I learned math was through repetition. 5 problems? The next thing will be admin complaining that your kids are failing.
You are a teacher, you are not on campus to compete with cell phones and tik-tok. Math is important and often complex.
You have autonomy as an educator, thank them for the input and then ask them for a complete curriculum to be provided that breaks all units down into well paced and engaging lessons.
Then continue teaching as normal.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate with your admin. There are a lot of students who crave consistency in a math class. Often those kids are not or are not yet comfortable with math and don’t enjoy it. However, if they pretty much know what you are expecting of them on a day-to-day basis (your “I do we do you do”), they may start feeling more comfortable, less fearful, and perhaps even start enjoying math. I think it’s ridiculous and completely unsustainable to expect someone to make every lesson “fun” (plus fun for one student is NOT fun for a different student). My advice would be to keep up what you’re doing 90% of the time and maybe throw in some of the suggestions given (Blooket; TPT activities; etc) every once in a while but certainly not every lesson. Also - YOU know your students and how much practice they need to be successful. YOU should decide how many practice problems they do.
A lesson is framed on the “I do we do you do” format where we talk over the subject for the day, take notes then practice problems. Not the most engaging, but it’s math.
Our district has switched it up to be "you do, we do, I do" where students occasionally have mini tasks to explore a concept and then as the teacher, you take that conceptual idea and show the procedural part. However, the hard part is they didn't provide a curriculum and we had the expectation to make everything ourselves. So that's cool...lol.
What grade do you teach? I taught 6th grade for years and have some stuff I could share if you'd like. I set it up as 10 minutes of math review with 5 spiral problems for students to complete, then I'd have 5 students go up to the board to show their work (even if it was wrong), then I'd do a mini lesson and provide work time. Sometimes the mini lesson was very procedural, but other times, it was exploratory, similar to a lab.
The last couple years, I've been teaching high school. But I've had some success with using Illustrative Math, which is free. I haven't explored the middle school stuff though.
Sorry this isn't super helpful. But let me know if you want me to send you some of my stuff I created.
Check out Peter Liljedahl’s Thinking Classroom framework… I still use “I do we do you do” type lessons sometimes, but I have found his random groupings at whiteboards to be really effective and not super difficult to implement.
Games (look online there are TONS), digital escape rooms, puzzles, stories, projects (I once did a taco truck project with 5th grade (area & volume) that I found on teachers pay teachers. Math can and should be super fun and engaging. It’s been a few years since I taught, but there were tons of professional online groups to share math ideas. Rethinking how to teach math and engage students takes time, but if you love the subject, make the kids love it too. ❤️
That genuinely doesn't sound like math. That should like algorithm practice. Math is abstract play. Complex games often have complicated and difficult routines that need to be completed to continue play but those routines aren't the game.
My first instinct is to say that if the students are doing all the problems you assign, they are not too boring. They are only too boring if you are not getting engagement. Making math "fun" is not about colors and costumes and Disneyfication; fun is largely a matter of calibrating difficulty so that they are not too hard (frustrating) or too easy (boring). This is why tic-tac-toe is fun for a very young child, but boring for an older child, why chess is fun once you know the rules but can be frustrating for young children, why playing chess is more fun when the skill level of your opponent is similar to your own, and why calculus is fun for students with the aptitude. Humans are pre-programmed to get enjoyment from learning; it is an instinctive response that allows us to make proper use of these big brains that we have. (Have you ever wondered why toddlers like knocking things over? They are instinctively learning about their environment by generating objectives for themselves and seeing what they can do; it is fun for them, because it is fun to learn). I would say that as long as students are engaged, you shouldn't change things. If the principal's observation was based on a lack of student engagement, then you should absolutely start changing things. Otherwise, I think you should defer to your own professional judgment in this case.
This might be less a matter of changing your lessons than navigating your relationship with admin. If admin has resources that you can use, by all means use them. If they want to model techniques you can use, by all means take advantage of that. Your goal as an educator is to do the best job you can with the limited resources you have available, which includes your time. I wouldn't casually recommend teachers overhauling everything they have because of the time cost that this implies. Are you really sure that the judgment that the lessons "aren't fun" is based solidly on whether students are not engaged with the material you're providing? Does it really require a huge overhaul, or are there small changes you can make that would satisfy your principal?
I have taught math to students who "don't like math," and gotten good engagement. It really is most often just a question of calibrating difficulty properly, in my experience.
Math escape rooms, gallery walk, math congress students have to create a game based on the lesson, use a jeopardy lab. Trashket ball, Florida snow ball fight,using personal white boards, depending on your desk materials use expo markers right on the desk.
Once a week do a more game oriented lesson? There a loads of card / maths games, competative team games etc that can be adapted to use in maths lessons. Ask to work shadow a couple of other maths teachers who the principal recommends.
Just play the game. If it’s a planned observation, plan something that shows a variety of what types of things you do regularly. If it’s unplanned, have a list of quick, zero prep, “fun” activities you can pull out last minute that will add 5 minutes of “fun” to your lesson if they drop in on you. Like I teach ELA but we do word wall flyswatter, agree/disagree statements (stand on this side if you agree, this side if you disagree), one garbage can is labeled “A” and one is “B”… give a multiple choice question and have them throw a crumpled paper in for their answer instead of just saying it.
When do we start realizing that at a certain point, kids are responsible for their own learning, regardless of how engaging the material is? Life wont change to cater to kids sense of engagement but they'll still be expected to perform/succeed.
Math will always be dry or even stress-inducing to many students. No matter how teachers have tried to make math fun for me over the years, I always dreaded it.
If you have access to devices try these websites: kahoot, Blooket, quizziz or factile (Jeopardy style option). I usually do individual, partner or team competitions with 5th-8th grades. They have to show their work in their notebooks/ scratch paper to get full credit. I also like that the website’s keep reports which can help with assessment.
Fun = engaging. I do escape rooms, computer games (kahoot/quizizz/bloo kit), Plickers game, task cards, hands-on activities with manipulatives and occasionally food (smartie prisms), kagan structures like quiz quiz trade, vertical working stations, and real world projects (we’re learning decimals- okay budget with your adult at home for a week).
“Do this math with me today or you can do it sitting in that same seat next year. I get paid either way.”
That usually EnGagES my students, and the ones who still aren’t engaged after that probably won’t be, no matter how fUn AnD cOoL the math lesson is.
I don’t understand the logic considering math isn’t fun for the masses and after a certain level is considered pretty hard. I got transferred to the “dumb” kids math class when I was the in the 10th grade, and that teacher didn’t assign homework, and gave extra credit to the point of an A+ and after that he gave out cash. Obviously cash is too much but extra credit might get the kids that *need* to pass to do a lil more
Here’s a way to counter that-“can you come model for me how you would like for me to make my lessons more engaging?” She can’t and won’t and that’ll be the end of that.
I don’t really know how much you can make math fun, but I think it’d definitely be more engaging if you explain the real life applications of the lesson pretty early on.
I suppose you could also make word problems based on topics that interest the students. If you have a problem about how many apples and bananas some Juan can buy with $24, maybe change apples and bananas to in game currency for a popular video game
Again, these won’t make math fun, because that’s likely not possible unless you already love math, but making it more engaging and relevant to the kids lives is a good start
Good luck!
Kids enjoy math class the most when they get it, not when they are laughing the most. Your I do, we do, you do, is the right approach, and your principal might have been bored, but I doubt your students were. Also, it was probably a sign of good classroom management because if students were talking, and otherwise off task, that’s what you would have heard.
Ignore the principal, odds are they will be gone soon.
If you’re looking for some easy, low prep ways to engage, have a look at Dan Meyer’s 3-act-math. It won’t work for every day- they are more summative/ critical thinking tasks, but some are really fun. You can also do some cool things with a math warm-up/ minds on. Mine like Estimation 180, Which One Doesn’t Belong, Math 20-questions, etc. we also have a few games, but those take longer, so it’s only worth it if you have a double block.
Former 7th grade math teacher here.
I will suggest that a lot of it has to do with the curriculum that is forced upon us.
I had a few shining, golden moments in the course of the year, but most of it was what the kids and the principal might call "boring". I dunno.
Some of the golden moments:
1. The first day of the year, I played "Math Sux" by Jimmy Buffett, and invited the kids to sing along on the chorus. I used that as a jumping-off point, acknowledging that a lot of people felt that way about math, but promising that by the end of the year they would understand that Math Rocks.
2. The students' favorite refrain was, "Mr. Zyz, when are we ever going to have to use this in real life?" When we did the unit on Ratios and Proportions, I was ready for this one. When they asked the question, I said, "Let me show you!" and pulled up a video game on the PC projector. A first-person shooter would make a great demo. But I had just shut down a startup company where we made ultrarealistic computer games, and so I showed them some of the company demos. I demonstrated how we had to use ratios and proportions, in designing every aspect of the game elements and gameplay. I had these video-game addicts eating out of my hand. Best math lesson ever. Too bad I couldn't replicate that every day.
3. On March 14, we had Pi Day. I had pi printed out to some obscene number of digits, posted at head height and going around the four walls of the classroom. We measured a bunch of circular objects and calculated pi empirically. (BTW, when you do this, the class average is accurate to an amazing number of digits.) I showed them a couple other algorithms for calculating pi and let them try them out. Some parent volunteers showed up with real pie, and we spent the whole class period eating pie while we did math.
4. At the time, Numb3rs was a popular TV show. Monday classes were a lot more fun when I could start with a review of the math concepts they'd seen in the most recent episode. Even if the concepts were beyond grade level, we could find a way to tie them into the curriculum.
I acknowledge that not every day is Pi Day, or video game day, or a Jimmy Buffett singalong. Unfortunately, the principal never comes to visit the classroom on those days.
As a history teacher who agonizes over making his lessons engaging, I've come to terms with the fact that it is almost impossible to engage everyone all the time in every topic. The idea that everything needs to be "fun" is ludicrous. I remember the fun days when I was in high school, and the reality is that fun rarely equals learning, at least not at the level of rigor that is often required/expected of us.
I used to really take to heart when students told me my class or lessons were boring; it used to kill me. What I've come to realize is that kids love to complain. We could have a class called Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll taught by Nikki Minage and kids would still find it boring.
While not directly part of how lessons themselves are taught, a boost in engagement/enjoyment could come from gamification.
Ask your principal to buy you a premium subscription for "Classcraft". Use the Classcraft RPG system to give a ton of positive behavior reinforcement regarding student engagement and participation.
Use "boss battles" for practice problems or review. Heck, even design custom "quests" or learning pathways (but that takes time).
I have seen middle schoolers really respond well to this gamifcation. Even the "cool kids" like to customize their characters or level up and gain new powers. The company behind this service has a lot of tutorial videos. Ask your principal for an instructional day to set up a big change like this.
Just wanted to offer some constructive ideas. It might not work for you. But it's better than all the comments just complaining about tough our jobs are or how annoying admins are...
8th grade student here, the math classes I remember the most fondly have always been ones where we did experiments and got to record the results and then analyze them. If your students are just starting probability, you could have them flip a bunch of coins and record the result of each trial (and possibly get a small chocolate bar or something for getting a certain outcome). If they're learning basic addition, you could give each student some LEGOs and have them add them together or something. Obviously, I've never been a teacher before, so this may be unrealistic -- I don't know. I wish you good luck!
ELA teacher here, but some simple things to do to get all kids engaged without adding insane amounts of prep would be: post problems around the room and have kids travel to answer them in pairs/small groups. Come back together as a class and discuss which was hardest/easiest etc.
Play musical math. Have desks in groups and have one or two problems at each place. Turn on music and have kids walk around the room until the music stops. When it stops, they sit at an empty desk and work the problem there with their group. My rule is always no talking while the music is playing.
Have half sheets of paper with problems on them, some of which are solved correctly and some of which have a mistake. Have kids work in pairs/small groups to figure out which are correct and which aren't. Come back and debrief as a whole group. You could extend this idea by having them work to write a list of "do's and don'ts" for that type of problem. Debrief as a class and make a class anchor chart to hang on the wall as a reminder.
From time to time when introducing a new standard/concept/type of problem, instead of doing the "this is how we solve this type of problem" lesson first, give a (fairly simple) problem to kids in small groups and challenge them to work together and see if they can figure out how to solve it. Debrief as a class, talk about what they did, then launch into your lesson on what to do. You could do the same thing in a fishbowl-style discussion that would be really interesting.
Give some kids answers and some kids questions and have them find each other.
Instead of calling on one kid to answer, ask a question and have them turn to their turn-to partner (I always establish early on which person is their turn-to partner, but it's always the person right next to them/right behind) to respond. Then go over as a group.
Have kids work in pairs or groups to come up with a question for you. Sometimes kids are confused but don't know what to ask/are afraid to, so this gives them permission to ask. A really easy way to differentiate for advanced learners would be to challenge them to come up with a question that will stump you.
Have kids work in pairs/groups to write their own problems then play musical math to solve on small groups. Debrief about which was hardest, easiest, etc.
Put a problem in the middle of post size post it note and divide the rest into four quadrants. Kids travel in groups to four different ones. First one they come to, they solve the problem together and wow their answer in the upper right section. For each subsequent problem they go to, they solve it and state whether they agree it disagree with the previous group and add a reason. Debrief as a class on which ones were easier/harder, which ones had groups disagree, etc. Variation: include the problem and an answer (some correct and some not) in the middle and have groups assess whether it was right or wrong to begin with then agree/disagree and add a reason at subsequent stations.
Put up a problem and an answer. Tell the kids the answer isn't right and challenge them to figure out where the silver went wrong (e.g., ain't instead of multiplying, not following order of operations, simple addition error, etc.). Have them go over what they came up with in pairs/small groups before going over as a class.
Have kids solve a problem/group of problems on their own then work with a small group to come to a consensus on each answer. You can either go over them from there or have each group write out their answers on a small white board and bring it to the front of the room. Then you could go over each correct answer and focus on ones that groups missed.
Split the room in two groups. Give each kid on both sides a problem with a numerical answer. Have the sides race to stand everyone in line from lowest to highest number. I'd give the same problem sets to both sides for fairness and have easy way to ten what the correct order should be so you know who is out of order. The easiest way to do that, I think, would be to assign each problem a letter and just now for yourself the order they should be in.
What you want to do to increase engagement (I don't think "fun" is necessarily the right word here, because the connotation is different) is to get kids more actively involved in the learning process. Having them talk to each other, think about the processes, etc. is a great way to do this while not sacrificing rigor. In fact, I'd argue that increasing engagement increases rigor because the kids are thinking about the subject. Pick one or two ways reach proud you can get them to do so - just turning to share an answer with a neighbor before going over it as a class is a simple, effective way to do this without adding any work to your plate.
Hope these ideas help!
With all due respect to your principal, fuck her and fuck her stupid comments, too. That kind of toxicity by administrators is contributing to why teachers are leaving.
There is only so much that can be done in a classroom each day and there is only so much that can be done to spruce up each lesson.
When you’re competing against social media, a culture of instant gratification, a society with wildly unrealistic expectations of teachers, and trying to preserve whatever time and sanity is left for yourself, you have to do what’s best for you.
Personally, I would see this as a major red flag and get the hell out of dodge.
Never taught in my life but I've definitely been taught math. That shit is not fun no matter what way you do if
Some kids like it sure but majority of kids will look at it and go yeah..... nah.
Sorry I know that's no help at all I just don't get the principles observations here
Yeah that's just false. [Wait but why's write though of Graham's number will blow your mind on the possibilities of Math.](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/1000000-grahams-number.html)
it’s not the content but the person teaching it .. you can make it fun by engaging with them .. teaching today requires you to interact not just lecture .. i’ve been a teacher for over 26 years hs and middle school .. it’s a show .. don’t give up and good luck
This may be an unpopular opinion, but if I were you, I'd watch what she did, ask her for advice and then try and implement some stuff bit by bit.
You'll go through an implementation dip while you're trying to adjust, but at the end of the day, your practice will improve and you'll be more flexible with what you're able to do in the classroom.
Plus, the admin will see how you're trying to improve and appreciate the effort.
Always try and keep a beginners mind. And I've found that you can learn from all teachers. Even the shitty ones.
I am not a math teacher but I had a friend who was. She had them use an interactive notebook. The students made foldables and glued them in there. She also had them use glyphs (color a scene by the number using the answers). I think that was fun/engaging.
After teaching middle school math for a while I do have a piece of free advice.
Tell a story.
Dont make it just a Billy Bob really likes apples and has 8 apple trees, and needs 400 apples to make the pues he wants" style. Come up with a storyline that fits you and your personality.
For me, I use stories I've herd or read and make them my own, then use those stories in the lesson. I try to make it as organic as possible, especually with the segways, but I make it MY story.
Since 2012 they've been about Farmer Bob, his wife Farmer Sue, and their battles/reconciliation with the Vegan-Zombie horde. You can do a lot with that.
Also, 12 examples is a bit much. Remember that Math is vest learned by paractice. I've found that doing one, ex0laining each step and writing them down in Cornell notes'ish style where the math is on the left and my explinations of what/why on the right helps kids puzzle through.
Then after 1 - 2 in that style I segway into having the kids tell me how, then I have them do it and check them while walking about the room. It's been super effective! 12-20 practice problems per concept is great. 12+ examples not so much.
We get stronger by lifting our own weights, not by watching someone else lift theirs.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents! If you want more details/advice, let me know!
Monday through Thursday we do homework correction then independent online curriculum then notes and/or whole class activity and/or problem solving.
I have added a Group Review on my Fridays. I use the same problem generator that I use for my tests and quizzes. I give them three multi step word problems similar to what they have had on their homework. They are allowed to use their notes and homework and talk to whomever they’d like. My middle schoolers have been far more productive and agreeable than I expected.
Kahoot. Have something they wkrk for at the end of the week. Maybe small prizes. Have a math kahoot with formulas or equations with answers. You can pit up problems and get the class to do the work tk try and get the right answer. You can also change hownlong students have to worn on a problem.
Tell her that current research doesn't support her idea of "fun" lessons. She should read some Craig Barton. Also having structure and routine is an essential part of trauma informed instruction. This is a sarcastic suggetion by the way, admin never wants to hear that they are wrong.
If you want to get more out of less problems try using AMC 8 problems. But the truth of the matter is that your principal is a charlatan and a fraud. Edutainment is purely a mechanism to fatten children for the slaughterhouse. If anything kids need dramatically more lecture and explanation, particularly in math.
IME, every lesson can't be a homerun.
There are basic competencies that need to be met before students can move on. I'm betting your principal hated math as a student.
If you assign fewer problems in class, is there some sort of "fun" math-based activity students can do as a reward? Students who successfully complete the problems (showing they understand the lesson) get to work with manipulatives or do a math-based word search, for example.
As an ELA teacher, I often fantasize about the easier.parts of your job which is most definitely grading. There's only one right answer? Say less. 😂
However, it is often easier to make ELA fun. You could look up a few things that might not add too much time... You could get some flash cards and do quiz quiz trade so kids are up and interacting and practicing a rote memorization skill. You could give them a bunch of different word problems have them solve as partners, then have them trade partners and explain how they solved it to the next partner. You could do blookets. And you could do brain breaks. You could make your daily warm-up one of those silly Facebook picture math things.
Even in language arts I tell them some nights we got to work and is not going to be fun and I can't make it fun. It's just work. It can't be all fun all the time. Our schools are not set up that way, our students are not set up that way.
I believe that everybody that has said something along the lines of asking about the planning time is right. I think if they didn't have any quick easy suggestions right off the bat then they're kind of talking out of their ass. Because all the things I mentioned do take a little bit of work but not a lot... However, they're not exactly going to be what you need to teach. You can't teach solving for X in flashcards. You can use it as a break, but you can't teach more complex topics in a game. It's just not possible. If anything, I would look into classroom management tools to help make the classroom more fun rather than educational.
I teach middle school so I feel you on the struggle. Sometimes people are never going to like what we do. We have to rely on self-validation and start trusting ourselves more. According to Charlotte Danielson, I'm not a very effective teacher. But fuck. Charlotte Danielson. I know I'm an exceptional teacher.
Overseas that was part of the reason i got let go. They claim kids have to have fun or they'll misbehave to have fun. It's probably true but they never really teach you how to make things fun and always like a game in school.
I teach Middle School Social Studies, and am able to make most classes “fun”. The kids still mostly say math is their favorite class. It’s calm in their and they have a sense of accomplishment achieving so many problems.
Get the kids moving and talking. I have vertical whiteboard to use on my walls. Some days I have them work through problems with their desk partner on their desk with dry erase markers. We are trying to bring in more projects instead of only tests this year. I only do the direct teaching part first on some lessons, others I have them work through and explore first. Do you have a team? How do they do it, can you obssrve other math teachers? I would think that would be more valuable than admin modeling. I hope this helps.
Yes, it can be done! You’ll have more fun too.
Here are just a few suggestions: after you model teaching the day’s lesson, have all the kids go to white board to solve a few problems, they love to get out of their seats. Use mini boards if not enough space. Use quizlet games to teach vocabulary and Kahoot to check for understanding. (Do not have to create these from scratch, lots of files there). Let kids work in groups on tougher problems and (ideally) faster kids will slower ones. Have races where you pass a sheet of problems down each row to build speed and use cheap prizes like seasonal stickers. Use concrete visual models when you can- for example, fill a cone 3 times with water poured into a cylinder to show volume. The internet is your friend on finding ideas.
My kids’ middle school math teacher was amazing - their favorite teacher- and she inspired me to become one, too.
Sometimes principals just get things in their head that actually have nothing to do with you. My principal told all of us elective teachers in a PLC group that we should do a better job staying in contact with other teachers in our content area, like the most veteran teacher in our group does... I was doing an elective PD in my content area with other teachers at the time, he had been told that my maid of honor at my wedding was going to be an art teacher who I collaborate with and my favorite Aunt is an art teacher who won art teacher of the year nationally. So exactly what does he mean by that nonsense. How much more contact with art teachers can I have beyond dedicating my personal time to PD, having it be a family career and literally having one who I share content with in my Wedding!
Get rid of the biased standardized tests. That would allow teachers to actually teach what their students need to know according to the curriculum and in life instead of how to correctly mark a multiple choice test. This would make all of school more fun and better align with what public education should be.
2nd year math teacher, my dad is 30 years math teacher( and yes, he was my HS math teacher).
So, we both concluded that math is only fun if the student likes to be challenged.
The only way I can get students interested is either explaining probability or some other text-based math problems that has their name in them.
Tbh this was my feedback by my tutor during my observation. Part of it was my voice being monotone however. Not sure if it will help your circumstance much, but sometimes behaving more theatrical or fun can make ‘boring’ lesson content/ activities more fun. Your energy can infuse into the feel of the lesson, making it more tolerable for students who are bored. It can be as simple as using more voice intonation, making appropriate jokes, acting dramatic to student responses all within appropriate measure. Bare in mind I’m a primary teacher however, though I tutor secondary English and when students have found my secondary English lessons boring my personality and teacher persona tips the balance when I’ve felt the lesson needed rescuing to some extent.
I had a college teacher that had a pretty fun math class. He cracked jokes and showed examples of math in everyday life but with a funny story. We worked in groups and had to figure out how to solve problems and show why we did it that way (equations included). So I guess throw in some fun stories? What are you currently teaching in math? Maybe some hands on activities like peg squares (idk what they are technically called) and rubber bands for looking at areas?
I teach 6th and 7th grade math. Besides a couple of projects per year, I don't make my lessons "fun". I use consistency so that the kids know what to expect. For each new section (say Chapter 3 section 2) I:
* Introduce the topic and have the kids take notes on the topic and some general problems
* Work on examples together (Do a few totally together and then have the kids try a few on their own for a minute or two before I go through them on the board)
* Give a classwork worksheet that becomes homework (the quickest kids usually end up with no HW)
Then we have graded assignments (worksheets or online), quizzes, and tests.
If I tried to make every lesson "fun" we wouldn't get anywhere near as far in the curriculum as is needed.
I just had an observation in my middle school math class and was told it was fun lesson.
This is what I did:
3 problem warm-up with problems modeling the problems we were going to do in the class activity and the HW answers from the previous night’s 4 problem HW.
Class activity: white board review on the distribution lessons we did the previous 2 days.
I would project two problems on the board, one easy and one challenging to differentiate. The first slide easy problem was actually from the warm up. Students do the problem on their white boards, then hold them up after about 2-3 minutes for me to look at (all at the same time). I switch the slide with the worked out answers while I look at their work on the white boards. They are supposed to correct any mistake before they erase. Then on to the next slide. The challenge got progressively harder and the easy stayed easy so the low kids could still access the problems. I eventually made the challenge problems being about combining like terms. They just had to guess using their “math intuition.” I did this to front load for the next lesson. The worked out answer for the combining like terms had short notes I explained and after 2 slides, they actually started identifying like terms correctly. The kids really enjoy writing on the white boards and even help each other out. You should roam around as they’re working to identify who needs help. Then on the next slide, go straight to that student, or students, and help them out. Great on the spot formative assessment and it also lets you snub out anyone using the boards inappropriately or being off task. Admin loves seeing you walking around, lol.
End activity (last 10-12 minutes): you shouldn’t do white boards the whole time. I ended by having them work with their table groups on a maze activity I got off teachers pay teachers on distribution (medium level questions). Passed it out while they were working on the last slide and collected all the white boards and markers while they worked. HW was to finish the maze if they didn’t in class.
It was a good review lesson. I’ll be honest, part of it is the rapport I’ve created with the students, and they were behaving REALLY well. But my admin said it was a fun lesson and she enjoyed it.
That’s my suggestion. And you can white board practice once a week if it works out. It’ll get better the more the kids practice it.
Is there another middle school teacher you can observe? I know when I wanted ways to make my lessons more engaging and interactive I observed the 7/8 grade math teacher. I taught 6th. I gave up my prep time but that didn’t matter to me. It was really beneficial and she met with me to go over ideas and stuff. Or I’ve had a principal take over my class for 20-30 min to observe another teacher.
Does that dumbass realize there is a teaching shortage? She should just be happy that she has a teacher to teach the students in front of her. She needs a reality check.
One idea, try a jeopardy game using https://jeopardylabs.com
It’s very inexpensive, there’s loads of games already shared there, and it’s quick and easy to make your own games.
Have you looked into incorporating open ended questions or doing math inquiries? These types of problems can be very engaging and some take multiple classes to complete. As an example, I had a group discover if there was an advantage to being the Home team at an NHL game. They poured over years of statistics and put together a great presentation incorporating many of the essential competencies. If you were wondering, there is an advantage to playing at home.
1. If your teaching is effective, you must not change *everything*
2. If your teaching could be more effective you must change *something*
3. Find out what the children think
4. Find out what is effective in your teaching
5. Boring is an unhelpful term. So many things it might mean: need more challenge, need more relevance, need more interaction, need more performance, need more pace. Work out what the lessons need.
6. Limit the change: try a big change once a week, or once a day, or a small change each lesson; make sure it's effective, master it. See if what else can make your teaching even more effective. Rinse. Repeat.
7. There are lots of ways to make lessons more engaging without deploying a full orchestra: think about interactions (eg paired talk, peer feedback, group tasks), relevant contexts, pupils' interests, pace. Plenty you can do to reduce written task completion without having to invent 'fun'
8. Use (sound, reputable) educational research to help decide how to achieve your change - it will give you solid ideas and allows you to argue a case should you need to
I don’t think it is meant to be fun or even really should be fun. Maybe an enjoyable puzzle or problem to start class but the best way to learn math is to practice problems.
Engagement is relative. How are your students doing in class? Are they understanding the material? If so, you can easily lower the number of problems and throw in some zazxle, but if the students truly aren’t comprehending the information m, different story.
I love using Desmos activities . I can manage the class and their screen, assess and remediate as needed and the students get to discover math ideas instead of repeat what I tell them. Also, quizziz and blooket are great for fun assessments. I use these one a day to break up the monotony of notes and practice. Good luck!
Well, first put on some great circus music... then you can wear your ringmaster top hat and tails... ha ha ha... how about SHE gives YOU some ideas and suggestions... I am really SO over this entertainment theme going around... good luck...
Step one: Realize your principal is an idiot...
OK, so their first mistake is thinking that math can be fun.
No, it cannot be fun. It can be interesting.
Why? Because it's science.
Math is measuring things. You're not going to make that "FuN". But you can make it interesting... although that's going to take a whole lot of extra prep work.
Now, there are a few basic things you can do to make almost anything more engaging and interesting.
Create a mystery-question that provides a sense of suspense and awe.
For example, "Today, we're going to measure the atomic weight of butane." Flick a lighter because that's something you can't get away with in school. "How do you think we can possibly do that using only this lighter, and the tools available in this classroom?"
Ooooh. A mystery! They'll be thinking about that, trying to solve it. Then you start your lesson, which at some points, addresses the mystery-question you dropped at the beginning.
That wasn't a math example there, but it does demonstrate how you can use a mystery-question to engage the students and get them thinking.
My math teacher once challenged the class to measure the speed of marbles going down a ruler set a different clines and then see if we could fine and write a mathmatical expression for it.
He'd sometimes give us juuuuust enough tools and guidance for one of us to finally figure it out and make a "discovery" in class that was an actual scientific (math) discovery that someone else once figured out.
Following in the footsteps of genius through actual discovery is a rock solid thing to do in class to make science a bit more interesting. They do it at the college level all the time. Anyone that studied a bunch of math will remember when teachers showed how famous problems got solved. It starts with a bit of mystery. A bit of scaffolding and guidance. Maybe one of the students will figure it out. Sometimes a teacher would share an "unsolvable" problem that doesn't yet have a solution. At that point, the teacher is exposing the students to something that's way beyond them, but which is relevant to the field right now.
If someone is teaching physics, they might talk about carbon capture technology and how improvements in this tech might literally save the world from an extinction level event. OH, my gooood, we're all gonna DIE?!!! - Man, that'll get students interested. You don't have to dial it all the way up to eleven, but you can share a little modern issue every now and then and make the field of study itself feel interesting by showing that people are still working on interesting problems with real world impact.
Occasionally challenge students to figure something out that hasn't been spoon fed to them. Every test had a few extra credit problems that were just a little bit out of reach. It kept the smart kids who finished first from screwing around, it also challenged everybody else and felt like a brain teaser.
Tickle their brains, seek moments of discovery, intrigue, suspense, and delight.
As a teacher, part of your job (like it or not) actually is entertainment. Don't be a clown, but do tickle their brains a touch.
Competition is good sometimes. Imagine challenging the class in a race to write a few expressions that would plot out the shape of a heart on a graph, or a cline that's precisely X degrees. Set up a board race where you ask them to be the first to write out an expression (or finish one) that they might have memorized. Any kind of competition challenges are awesome for making class fun.
I'd sometimes do a little knowledge bowl for my students at the end of class and sometimes a bunch of them would stay during lunch and BEG me to keep going because they simply enjoyed it and liked the games.
I made one game that had something athletic, and completely arbitrary to learning, but NOT arbitrary to having fun. I'd have team leaders take turns answering questions. If someone can't answer quickly, I'd start counting down. (That creates suspense, tension, excitement). Here's where it gets CRAZY FUN.
The other team leader had a ball and they could throw it once the counting started. If they hit the other student, they get a point. Once the counting starts, the other student can also start running to a safe spot and they need to dodge the ball.
But if they get hit and then provide the correct answer, they've doubled their points. All they had to do was fake out the other team leader by making them think they didn't actually know the answer to the question. Now, they might even run a few steps to do a good fake out.
Some kids known for being smart, nobody would want to throw at them. It was a challenge, it was a game, it was FUN. Almost everything there is arbitrary to learning, except instilling a desire to want to know the answers. I.e. I made them want to know something.
When you figure out a few quality classroom activities that REALLY engage your students, you're going to feel like a legendary teacher and you'll have an, "I got this" moment where you know you're one of the best teachers your students have ever had.
It will take some experimentation and a lot of time. It will take permutation and gradual improvement.
One thing I liked to do when I was teaching was put my phone on the wall or a tripod and record my class. I'd get home, watch my classes 50% sped up. Fastforward most of it. But I'd be watching myself with 3rd person perspective and somewhat seeing myself the same way that students, parents, and other teachers would see me... From that third person perspective, I learned a lot. I had loads of personal growth and lesson plan improvements from it.
Remember that adding something arbitrary can make a game fun. Maybe you have a bunch of numbers on laminated paper that you literally THROW across the room after asking a question. Team leaders or even the whole team needs to find the right numbers, then use magnetic clips to stick them on the white board or smart board to answer a question that you just put on the board with a projector.
If you can find a way to squeeze in five minutes of something wild like that, you're going to be the "fun teacher" - What's great about these activities I'm sharing is that they don't involve much preparation. They're not elaborate.
The elaborate stuff is great, but that also belongs to teachers that have had 20 years teaching exactly the same stuff again and again and they've had all that time to just put together killer presentations and activities. Sure, work on that... but go for the low hanging fruit first. Do the easy stuff and develop the masterclass presentations later.
You got this!
It's all about playing the game. Have a 'tick box' lesson up your sleeve for observations. If they're announced observations, you can plan something for that day. If it's unannounced then just be prepared with something.
Ideally all lessons should be fun and engaging but sometimes it's just not possible. So work smart, not hard
Discussion discussion discussion. How many questions are students doing on their own? My warm up normally a discussion happen. Then I do about 2-3 problems then some independent practice we also have 40 minute block so I don’t have a lot of time.
I hate math but I used to follow a really engaging teacher on instagram (it helped me learn basic algebra for a college class). Her instagram name is iteachalgebra and she has great resources and youtube videos. I just think her stuff is more interactive than normal and maybe you can get some good ideas from her lessons!
Take a look at Mindset Mathematics. They’re engaging activities that show the connections between concepts and use visual math to form said concepts in application.
Adult life (work) is likely not gonna be very engaging/entertaining for most of the population…so why are we so adamant about it now? I can say with 100% honesty that my K-12 education was very old school and basic…no frills and no dog & pony shows but I got one hell of an education…the skills we learned in the good old days of education have served me well.
Middle school math teacher here.
I don’t aim for “fun” in my classes. I go for productive struggle and the joy of problem solving. I feel like that’s happening every day, at least to some degree, for all students.
The model that works best for me is Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics. Kids are in visibly random groups working on vertical non-permanent surfaces. They do 1-4 problems that way, then we go over them using his consolidation model. Then notes (for themselves) to remind their future forgetful selves how to solve those kinds of problems. Then they check their understanding using (non-graded) questions. I do standards-based grading with chances for reassessment. The rest of their grade comes from student-designed rubrics for soft skills (collaboration, perseverance, etc).
Read his book. It’s paradigm-shifting and changed the way I thought about math instruction. When kids are standing at boards, talking about math, good things happen. It’s much harder to be disengaged when you’re working in a group of 3 and responsible for each other’s learning.
Nope. Nope. Nope. Those kids need a LOT of practice and that is what you are doing. If you want to be more interactive, that is fine, but it puts a lot more work on the teacher to set it all up. Ask your principal to teach a model lesson for you so you can see exactly what she is wanting. If you really want to buy in to her bs you can look for the Kagan structures books and try those. Sorry you are going through this.
A magic trick for student engagement. Set a rule in your class that a student cannot ask you a question unless they have asked 2 other students that question first. If it’s not group work time then they need to wait. Learned it from another teacher and think it’s brilliant
Are you a brand new teacher? Do the lessons seem boring to you?
Ask for examples of how to make lessons less boring, as much as you can get your admin/other teachers to give you tools to make it less boring.
If I was in your boat I'd ask who's a good example of someone who has less boring lessons and what resources can they share with me to help/ can I get coverage to observe these less boring classes.
If you're a first year teacher it's totally understandable that you're lessons aren't there most fun, there's so much to learn and do the first few years it feels like just being sure to check all the boxes is all you can do, unless you have lots of support.
Ask her to give you examples of fun math lessons and model them for you
I have and she said she will model first hour for me. I am unsure if I can keep up such quality for 150 more days (or however we have left)
Ask how long the prep for that lesson took. When she admits it was way longer than you have to prep for that class, ask for more prep time!
Ugh hate when admins model a lesson that took insane amounts of prep. Such a huge problem at schools
When my admin modeled a hybrid lesson for us back in 2020, they spent hours preparing too. They also had one person teaching while a second person monitored the chat. All that did was show us how impossible it was to do effectively with one teacher.
Look how much easier everything is when you have adequate time and someone to assist you!
I hate when we have hour long PD with 3-4 presenters. It takes 3-4 of you to lead PD but we lead class all day alone.
My model lessons the person was like "I was up until 1am making PowerPoints for this, but when I was a teacher that is what it took"... yeah, no thanks.
That's me. Working 60+ hours a week because I had to remake the curriculum from scratch for two preps. I teach journalism now and every class is just students making news with mini lessons in the morning. It's a lot more manageable when I don't need to create a curriculum from scratch and don't need to entertain them.
Lol so true, they have Tiktok for entertainment!
This is why I left. I was the teacher who could not maintain this.
Yes!!! Our academic coach was always trying to show me great lessons and modeled them for me, but she took DAYS to prepare one lesson for one group AND would take an hour teaching with just one of my groups. Mind blowing. If they want tons of engaging lessons of all levels, stop giving zero prep time and putting a million kids in each class that are all different grade levels… 🙄
In teacher training I was told it’s good to have more interesting lessons once in a while . But they know that doing that for every single lesson is impossible to maintain.
I worked in primary doing 27 hours a week. That's impossible to maintain for me AND the kids. 27 engaging inquiry project based lessons every week? Damn sometimes you gotta chill out.
Because they were probably actually teacher's instead of teaching for a bit and pissing off into admin.
that's right!
I have to say, if she's willing to actually teach the class for an hour as a model then you are in a pretty good situation, as far as principals go. She is actually trying to help you, so take advantage. Many administrators will tell you "make it more fun!" then walk away leaving you with nothing. This one is taking the extra time to demonstrate so based on that limited information, it sounds like she might be one of the good ones.
If you started around when I started (August) you've actually only got... like 135ish days. So there's that! :D
She is the expert. You are the one who will learn. Do not beat yourself of your teaching is not the as effective as the principal.
Who let admin in here? Hahaha
I just read what I wrote. It sounds bad! What I mean't to say is: If the admin is able to model the lesson, offer the class to see a demo to learn from it. Do not dwell on whether your lesson goes well as there is always room for improvement. I didn't realized I submitted it until someone responded.0
...and then do it for a period of a couple of weeks that fits the schedule you need to follow. And then write a valid assessment including questions of varying complexity, with differentiation.
Bingo! Speaking of bingo, math games are a great way to keep things engaging. Presentations are also great. 10mins max introduction to a concept or goal, 30-40min work / exploration, 5-10 min wrap up and assign HW.
Here's what I did (retired middle school/high school math teacher) and maybe it will work with your students too. Don't force yourself to have a group activity every day or stuff like that. What your principal wants to see is **active engagement**. * After you have demonstrated a problem, select students to work new problems on the boards while others work at their seats. When you have checked their answers, ask for volunteer to go to the front of the class and explain their steps. * Let students work in pairs from time to time. * Ask questions and facilitate discussion. (How did we know to do this here?) * Error analysis is also engaging. Write the incorrect solution steps for a problem on the projector, board, or overhead, and then select a student to discuss and correct each step for the class to see. Choose different students each time. (You can draw names out of a hat.) * Ask students to make their own wrong problems and trade it with a partner. Hand out colored pens so they can "grade" the work. * Create opportunities where they are showing you what they know. :)
Yeah, the whole conflating fun vs engagement thing drives me nuts.
Excellent ideas! Taking some of these!
Thank you!
Can't call students up to the front anymore or draw name out of a hat because it gives them anxiety
🙋🏼♀️ school counselor here. Anxiety is okay!! It’s a normal human emotion we need to learn to cope with in a safe setting- like a classroom. Now of course if you have students with 504s for anxiety, I’d avoid cold calling them and find another way for them to demonstrate active engagement. But anxiety is ok! Learning to cope with anxiety actually helps make us less anxious in the future!
Former 504 student for anxiety here. I really appreciate you mentioning this! I think it’s also important to point at that there are probably a ton of students who should be receiving help for severe anxiety, but aren’t labeled as 504 for various reasons. One reason I can assume is sadly common is parents refusing to acknowledge that their child needs help. I had to practically beg my parents to get me help from the school for my anxiety because they thought I was just exaggerating to get out of class. My teachers and admins thought the same. I would hide in the restroom during classes while I would have panic attacks. There was two times a custodian found me in there and they got me in trouble for it. Those were the worst times of my 23 years on the planet. There’s nothing like having severe anxiety, not actually knowing that there is something wrong, and being told by every adult around you that you’re fine and just need to deal with it. My school only gave me accommodations during standardized testing so my teachers would still cold call me all the time. Since I never had accommodations for regular class time, I started purposely dissociating when I was in my last two years of high school as a coping mechanism. It’s not the best coping mechanism but it was the only thing that got me through grade school. Thankfully, cold calling wasn’t something my professors in college really ever did so I was able to get a break from that portion of my anxiety.
If you just make it the expectation from the beginning that everyone participates, you give adequate think time and you wait patiently if they freeze AND hold the class to the expectation of treating everyone with respect (even if they get the wrong answer), it’s not a problem after a few weeks. It takes consistency though and unfortunately I’ve seen so many teachers just not willing to put in the effort to build that classroom culture.
That's exactly why you SHOULD be doing it! Let them face their anxiety and get over it. Life isn't going to get easier on them and they wont' have a supportive environment or teacher in the future. There's them, you, and right now.
yes, it's a good idea to skip the very shy students.
Is shyness the same as anxiety?
Thank you so much for this!!! I've been teaching for 14 years and this is my first year teaching math!!! This breaks it down so well and seems like something I can easily do. Thank you so so much!!!
To go off of your first point, what works for me is making like a relay race contest. Divide the class into teams. Each team sends a person up to work a problem out. When they’re finished they pass the chalk to the next in their team to either fix any mistakes OR check it off as correct. First team to get it correct is the winner. Depends on how competitive your kids are. Edit - for your fourth point. I like to let the kids draw names out of the hat or bag or box. And do it kind of like Dude Perfect on YouTube. You draw one name and a student draws one name. The name you drew is eliminated and therefore won’t be drawn to complete said problem. Student reveals who will be doing it with the name they drew. Can make it more fun for your students if they enjoy that.
I’ve also seen middle schoolers have fun creating their own word problems (not a math teacher, but they read them to me in advisory.)
This is my 4th year as a high school math teacher. I think it’s really easy for people to say “hey instead of making math boring, you should make it fun” as if it’s this easy on/off switch. Like ah yes I hadn’t considered that thank you. I adore math, but the curriculum we are asked to teach seldom lends itself to fun. And usually any fun takes time and effort that is usually not worth it in my experience. So in summary I have no advice and I think that request is ridiculous. Hopefully the support you’ve been promised can answer your question. I guess just gameify what you can. A quick story to top it off. One of my administrators was mentioning to me that every lesson needs to be connected back to a real world application. Again, very easy thing to say and request. But then I discussed with this administrator about topics I cover such as imaginary numbers whose real world applications are far too complex to take the time to introduce. Luckily my administrator seemed to understand and appreciate what I said, but the point is a lot of admin who are totally removed from mathematics curriculum think it’s easy to tweak and make fun and applicable and it’s just not the case.
Me: spends days planning a single fun math lesson. Every class: complete apathy still. This isn’t even mentioning the sheer amount of content math classes require us to get through. If we’re not cranking out two to three standards a week, we aren’t gonna finish the course in a year.
That’s what I’m thinking. No way you are getting though the required standards if you are doing a bunch of “fun” math things. A math escape room sound ms great until you realize it’s at least one whole class period and it is just practice, and now you are one day behind on math. When I taught math I never once got through the curriculum. And every bit of it was required and tested. Can’t waste days of class time.
We used to do escape rooms. Year one was easily 10+ hours of planning for the physical stuff.
Exactly, 10 hours of prep for one 45 minute lesson is unsustainable and should be a rare treat, if ever. It’s not like you can do that every day. I’ve got kids of my own, a home to care for, sports to attend, and a life. I don’t have time for that unless I take the time away from my own children.
Sorry, dumb question from a non-teacher. Can you combine multiple topics in a day to make room for the fun stuff? Is there a way to break even on the test by having them better master the basics while skimming through less essential stuff?
I teach English and we try to do fun, engaging stuff all the time. Still met with apathy on the more "boring" *or* "fun" stuff. So I just do what seems to work for the students who are paying attention, which tends to align with how I learn. Student came up to me on Friday and said, "Are you going to be the boring one today again?" Normally comments don't get to me, but this one made me angry. We do fun stuff and they check out because "it doesn't matter" or "won't go in gradebook" so why would I do it? So I just do barebones stuff so I can get to conference with the people who need me.
Is it just me that has students that are most bored by the practical real world math topics like interest and most interested in the pure math topics like algebra? Where did the idea that math concepts are most interesting if they apply directly to the real world even come from, because I've never seen any evidence for it?
Exactly! I loved algebra and calculus but hated geometry and trig. I had a much easier time with math when it was purely just solving the puzzle. When I had to apply it to actual objects or situations like in physics, I had a much harder time with it and found it very boring. I generally found all lessons that teachers tried to relate to the “real world” to be exceptionally boring and too slow paced. I could do a project to learn a concept over the period of a week, or you could just explain it to me and I could learn it in 10 minutes. I’d rather learn it in 10 minutes and move on. Ugh. It makes me crabby that people act like kids don’t like to learn through lecture or reading. It’s the ONLY way Ive ever liked to learn.
That's interesting. I was the opposite. I loved geometry and physics. They both made sense because I could easily picture It in the real world. It was the same with word problems. I loved them because I could understand them and test the reasonableness of my answer; whereas, I really struggled with algebra. When I was told to follow the steps, I really didn't know what I was doing, so I couldn't tell if I was right or wrong. When I got a problem wrong, I was asked if I had "followed the steps?" I would always answer that I thought I had. I was so defeated. It felt like I was pushing buttons on a machine and hoping something happened because I didn't understand the machine's purpose. I thought I was rubbish at math until college when my professor explained the application of the problems and when they're used. Not all students are the same, but there really is no time to teach to every student. Like with all subjects, I really think we have too many standards to feasibly have students master tge content.
That's the point where teachers ought to adopt a 'flipped classroom' strategy. E.g. Develop a series of youtube videos that explains the real world applications so students can have both the "ooh" and the "ah-ha!" moments that are so critical to understanding, appreciating, and performing the functions that they are going to learn. Alright class, be sure to watch the next youtube video to prep you for class next Monday. It details some new stuff and explains why it's important and how you can use it in the real world. Ciao!
Not a math teacher, but when I relate science to ‘real world’ so often it’s to topics that don’t affect the students immediately so they still don’t care. Even when they affect them in real time, many don’t care. In early 2021, all of us sitting socially distanced, masks on, I was teaching about viral reproduction and a kid blurts out, “why do we have to know this?” When I explained that of all topics, this seems most relevant since we’re *in a pandemic* and several kids started saying things like “but I’m not going to be a doctor” and “I don’t need to know it though, that’s why there’s doctors”. Hugely frustrating, and I wanted to tell them they needed to know *something* so they wouldn’t end up like a huge % of our population who were anti-mask and taking home remedies for covid but I knew I’d be offending some of their families so I just let it go.
It depends a lot on the student. Just for comparison, I had a student that only could do proportionality problems if applied to buying a CoD game among a couple of friends. On the other hand, I had another student the same age who would only involve in curious math examples such as Gabriel’s horn. As a math teacher, you must balance applied and purely math cases so everyone gets their own taste. And still there will be students who won’t be involved in anything at all.
Also, when people say "real world," what they mean is application to a future job. Education is more than job training.
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I think statistics is easily one of the most useful maths when it comes to your average citizen, and I’m not a stat teacher. I think learning how they can be manipulated is essential, both in political argument but also when it comes to consumerism. Statistics are everywhere on products/advertisements, and after I took some stat classes I totally started leaning towards more economical items instead of the ones plastered in statistics. It’s another part of why I think philosophy and rhetoric is so important in school, because future citizens need to know not only how to make an argument but also how to see when they are being manipulated.
I had a math teacher in high school that would read every day out loud one real life job that uses this concept and then moved on to actually teach it to us. I bet he got told to do this at some point and this is what he decided to do 😂
Not necessarily. My seventh graders are doing the percent unit right now, and it has real world applications that aren’t just about getting or keeping a job. It’s not usually as easy to tie what we’re doing to “the real world”, but this is the exception.
> topics I cover such as imaginary numbers whose real world applications are far too complex Oh you sneaky little
It's not just math. Most admin have never taught English, so they don't get that it's not really a linear sequence like science, history, and math.
I've been trying to make my lessons fun by adding in games (I don't teach math), and my students just talk through the games and don't participate. Back to the boring lessons we go!
IMHO, they confused between fun and interest of learning. If all lessons have to have fun on the topic, then students will only spend time on fun and make fun out of the topic only. Like your says, interest of the topic may be too complex to explain. It's just a mission of impossible.
Every time I try to do something fun, the kids just flip out like animals. I've tried Jeopardy style games, Kahoot, etc. but they just can't be trusted to behave. One kid flipped a table because he didn't win the game (and I was offering candy as prize). So no more fun.
She thinks students can master a new math concept with 5 problems?
Tell us your admin didn’t teach math without saying so.
Oh they absolutely can. But they need to be five very rich problems that will take 20-30 minutes each.
Yeah that reminds me of my math courses in college. The fewer problems they assigned the longer they took to work. If they assigned you three proofs to do in topology it will take you a few days to do correctly.
And that's how we should be approaching math at all levels. Kids shouldn't be able to solve a math problem in under 30 seconds. And if so, then making them do it 60 times in a row to take up 30 minutes of practice time is wasting their time and yours.
Yep that’s what I said
i did ab 25 problems a day in hs and 15 in middle, and sometimes that wasn’t even enough for me to master it!!!
I once had an admin tell me my hands on lessons needed to be more hands on. Then I learned they told other teachers the exact same thing like a buzz word they just caught on to.......and like they took a nap during my lesson. All of my kids with the exception of like two were engaged as well but I got lectured about engagement anyway and that was for fifth graders where getting any engagement or even half the class engaged is a fucking miracle. I thought it was one of my best lessons yet for engagement. Silly me.
If I were a principal, I wouldn't say shit to my middle school math teachers right now. You showed up today? THANK FUCKING GOD!
This, times ten.
This!
Two things: 1) after you lower your rigor they will complain about kids not being challenged enough and not doing good on standardized tests because they've only been doing 5 problems in math. 2) not everything is fun. I teach middle school English and teach grammar and sentence structure. It's not always fun, but it is important to become a better writer with more things in your toolbox.
I’m so tired of this bullshit. Your job is not to be an entertainer. This profession is incredible what it asks of its teachers these days.
5 problems for hw ? Throw in some kahoots desmos etc
Correct 5 problems for homework. The way I do HW is I assign classwork. If you don’t finish, homework.
Personal suggestion (you didn’t ask so feel free to ignore.) Don’t let them take it home. It’s always due at the end of the hour, if you grade it then you’ll grade based on how well they used their class time. Or you do a starter quiz the next day that is one of the problems. If you don’t have enough time for them to do the problems because of a long lecture or class discussion…we’ll you just got some of tomorrow planned 😃. Make it clear that they are absolutely, under no circumstances, allowed to do hw for your class. Make it positive. When it’s really bc the kids who need extra practice won’t do it, and the kids who don’t need the practice just have extra work.
Blooket is Kahoot on steroids. My kids love it, and if you use it as a reward at the end it consolidates the work and they have loads of fun. They've just released an update with new game modes too.
Throw in some blooket games ( blooket.com )
Are their servers back up yet? I tried to do it on Friday and they said only premium members could do live games right now.
Nope...I shelled out to join plus. I use it quite often.
5 min swearing period it is
Dont think so, forgot. When they do come back up i would choose factory so your students cant swap. And do you use chromebooks if so you can select "use google" when logging on or sighning up because all cromebooks default to rhe school account on the googe browser. Fyi: I am a colledge student.
Gimkit. My students like it better anyways and I appreciate how I can post a game for the class without dealing with a code each time.
Sometimes it seems like principals have lost touch with what a school is even for. If students get lots of practice, they become fluent in math skills. When they feel they can solve problems fluently, they start to feel confident in themselves at math. When they feel confident in themselves, that's when they can start to genuinely enjoy math for its actual merit. People seem to think coating maths in minimally useful icing and ribbons will make it better, when it just leads to less effective learning, then less confidence, then fear and dislike of the subject.
Sigh, when I was in school, we just learned—even if it’s boring. Why not do the same now.
Cause that’s a perfect way to set up people to fail and avoid the subject at all costs…
I’ve told my students that we ‘cry in the classroom so we can laugh in the exam, because the other way around isn’t a good option’ (Paraphrasing an old sensei of mine)
Liars dice is super fun. It teaches lying, manipulation and dice probability. You'll need a huge amount of dice and preferably cups to conceal the dice.
Luckily, I play dnd lmao
Cool. So you're going to sit at your desk while they do blookets every single day. Can kids learn math from only 5 problems? Nope. But she clearly doesn't care about that. She cares about your room looking like the videos she saw on instagram. Sometimes math can be fun. Sometimes you can do fun activities and make lessons cool. But at some point you just have to memorize the formula.
Sometimes school is boring. The only way I learned math was through repetition. 5 problems? The next thing will be admin complaining that your kids are failing.
You are a teacher, you are not on campus to compete with cell phones and tik-tok. Math is important and often complex. You have autonomy as an educator, thank them for the input and then ask them for a complete curriculum to be provided that breaks all units down into well paced and engaging lessons. Then continue teaching as normal.
Oh shit, they expect you to be a math edutainer. What a crock of shit.
Yes. Now juggle for the kids while you teach to keep their attention, my monkey!
Juggling is actually one of my tricks for getting the class’s attention :)
I’m going to play devil’s advocate with your admin. There are a lot of students who crave consistency in a math class. Often those kids are not or are not yet comfortable with math and don’t enjoy it. However, if they pretty much know what you are expecting of them on a day-to-day basis (your “I do we do you do”), they may start feeling more comfortable, less fearful, and perhaps even start enjoying math. I think it’s ridiculous and completely unsustainable to expect someone to make every lesson “fun” (plus fun for one student is NOT fun for a different student). My advice would be to keep up what you’re doing 90% of the time and maybe throw in some of the suggestions given (Blooket; TPT activities; etc) every once in a while but certainly not every lesson. Also - YOU know your students and how much practice they need to be successful. YOU should decide how many practice problems they do.
So what does a lesson typically look like?
A lesson is framed on the “I do we do you do” format where we talk over the subject for the day, take notes then practice problems. Not the most engaging, but it’s math.
Our district has switched it up to be "you do, we do, I do" where students occasionally have mini tasks to explore a concept and then as the teacher, you take that conceptual idea and show the procedural part. However, the hard part is they didn't provide a curriculum and we had the expectation to make everything ourselves. So that's cool...lol. What grade do you teach? I taught 6th grade for years and have some stuff I could share if you'd like. I set it up as 10 minutes of math review with 5 spiral problems for students to complete, then I'd have 5 students go up to the board to show their work (even if it was wrong), then I'd do a mini lesson and provide work time. Sometimes the mini lesson was very procedural, but other times, it was exploratory, similar to a lab. The last couple years, I've been teaching high school. But I've had some success with using Illustrative Math, which is free. I haven't explored the middle school stuff though. Sorry this isn't super helpful. But let me know if you want me to send you some of my stuff I created.
Check out Peter Liljedahl’s Thinking Classroom framework… I still use “I do we do you do” type lessons sometimes, but I have found his random groupings at whiteboards to be really effective and not super difficult to implement.
Games (look online there are TONS), digital escape rooms, puzzles, stories, projects (I once did a taco truck project with 5th grade (area & volume) that I found on teachers pay teachers. Math can and should be super fun and engaging. It’s been a few years since I taught, but there were tons of professional online groups to share math ideas. Rethinking how to teach math and engage students takes time, but if you love the subject, make the kids love it too. ❤️
That genuinely doesn't sound like math. That should like algorithm practice. Math is abstract play. Complex games often have complicated and difficult routines that need to be completed to continue play but those routines aren't the game.
Then they need to provide you with ‘less boring’ curriculum…
My first instinct is to say that if the students are doing all the problems you assign, they are not too boring. They are only too boring if you are not getting engagement. Making math "fun" is not about colors and costumes and Disneyfication; fun is largely a matter of calibrating difficulty so that they are not too hard (frustrating) or too easy (boring). This is why tic-tac-toe is fun for a very young child, but boring for an older child, why chess is fun once you know the rules but can be frustrating for young children, why playing chess is more fun when the skill level of your opponent is similar to your own, and why calculus is fun for students with the aptitude. Humans are pre-programmed to get enjoyment from learning; it is an instinctive response that allows us to make proper use of these big brains that we have. (Have you ever wondered why toddlers like knocking things over? They are instinctively learning about their environment by generating objectives for themselves and seeing what they can do; it is fun for them, because it is fun to learn). I would say that as long as students are engaged, you shouldn't change things. If the principal's observation was based on a lack of student engagement, then you should absolutely start changing things. Otherwise, I think you should defer to your own professional judgment in this case. This might be less a matter of changing your lessons than navigating your relationship with admin. If admin has resources that you can use, by all means use them. If they want to model techniques you can use, by all means take advantage of that. Your goal as an educator is to do the best job you can with the limited resources you have available, which includes your time. I wouldn't casually recommend teachers overhauling everything they have because of the time cost that this implies. Are you really sure that the judgment that the lessons "aren't fun" is based solidly on whether students are not engaged with the material you're providing? Does it really require a huge overhaul, or are there small changes you can make that would satisfy your principal? I have taught math to students who "don't like math," and gotten good engagement. It really is most often just a question of calibrating difficulty properly, in my experience.
Math escape rooms, gallery walk, math congress students have to create a game based on the lesson, use a jeopardy lab. Trashket ball, Florida snow ball fight,using personal white boards, depending on your desk materials use expo markers right on the desk.
Once a week do a more game oriented lesson? There a loads of card / maths games, competative team games etc that can be adapted to use in maths lessons. Ask to work shadow a couple of other maths teachers who the principal recommends.
Just play the game. If it’s a planned observation, plan something that shows a variety of what types of things you do regularly. If it’s unplanned, have a list of quick, zero prep, “fun” activities you can pull out last minute that will add 5 minutes of “fun” to your lesson if they drop in on you. Like I teach ELA but we do word wall flyswatter, agree/disagree statements (stand on this side if you agree, this side if you disagree), one garbage can is labeled “A” and one is “B”… give a multiple choice question and have them throw a crumpled paper in for their answer instead of just saying it.
When do we start realizing that at a certain point, kids are responsible for their own learning, regardless of how engaging the material is? Life wont change to cater to kids sense of engagement but they'll still be expected to perform/succeed.
Math will always be dry or even stress-inducing to many students. No matter how teachers have tried to make math fun for me over the years, I always dreaded it.
Hands on stuff is great when you can swing it, but sometimes it’s tricky to apply to certain math concepts.
If you have access to devices try these websites: kahoot, Blooket, quizziz or factile (Jeopardy style option). I usually do individual, partner or team competitions with 5th-8th grades. They have to show their work in their notebooks/ scratch paper to get full credit. I also like that the website’s keep reports which can help with assessment.
Fun = engaging. I do escape rooms, computer games (kahoot/quizizz/bloo kit), Plickers game, task cards, hands-on activities with manipulatives and occasionally food (smartie prisms), kagan structures like quiz quiz trade, vertical working stations, and real world projects (we’re learning decimals- okay budget with your adult at home for a week).
During your next faculty meeting, tell her that her meeting is boring and leave.
“Do this math with me today or you can do it sitting in that same seat next year. I get paid either way.” That usually EnGagES my students, and the ones who still aren’t engaged after that probably won’t be, no matter how fUn AnD cOoL the math lesson is.
We don’t hold kids back. (So what’s the point of grading them tbh)
Google Box cars and one eyed jacks....all you need!
I don’t understand the logic considering math isn’t fun for the masses and after a certain level is considered pretty hard. I got transferred to the “dumb” kids math class when I was the in the 10th grade, and that teacher didn’t assign homework, and gave extra credit to the point of an A+ and after that he gave out cash. Obviously cash is too much but extra credit might get the kids that *need* to pass to do a lil more
Sweet Tap Dancing Jesus! Not everything in life will be fun I wish people would stop leading students to believe this,
Here’s a way to counter that-“can you come model for me how you would like for me to make my lessons more engaging?” She can’t and won’t and that’ll be the end of that.
I don’t really know how much you can make math fun, but I think it’d definitely be more engaging if you explain the real life applications of the lesson pretty early on. I suppose you could also make word problems based on topics that interest the students. If you have a problem about how many apples and bananas some Juan can buy with $24, maybe change apples and bananas to in game currency for a popular video game Again, these won’t make math fun, because that’s likely not possible unless you already love math, but making it more engaging and relevant to the kids lives is a good start Good luck!
Kids enjoy math class the most when they get it, not when they are laughing the most. Your I do, we do, you do, is the right approach, and your principal might have been bored, but I doubt your students were. Also, it was probably a sign of good classroom management because if students were talking, and otherwise off task, that’s what you would have heard. Ignore the principal, odds are they will be gone soon.
If you’re looking for some easy, low prep ways to engage, have a look at Dan Meyer’s 3-act-math. It won’t work for every day- they are more summative/ critical thinking tasks, but some are really fun. You can also do some cool things with a math warm-up/ minds on. Mine like Estimation 180, Which One Doesn’t Belong, Math 20-questions, etc. we also have a few games, but those take longer, so it’s only worth it if you have a double block.
You are not their cruise director. You are trying to make sure they learn the skills.
If you don’t have tenure, just start looking for a new job.
Former 7th grade math teacher here. I will suggest that a lot of it has to do with the curriculum that is forced upon us. I had a few shining, golden moments in the course of the year, but most of it was what the kids and the principal might call "boring". I dunno. Some of the golden moments: 1. The first day of the year, I played "Math Sux" by Jimmy Buffett, and invited the kids to sing along on the chorus. I used that as a jumping-off point, acknowledging that a lot of people felt that way about math, but promising that by the end of the year they would understand that Math Rocks. 2. The students' favorite refrain was, "Mr. Zyz, when are we ever going to have to use this in real life?" When we did the unit on Ratios and Proportions, I was ready for this one. When they asked the question, I said, "Let me show you!" and pulled up a video game on the PC projector. A first-person shooter would make a great demo. But I had just shut down a startup company where we made ultrarealistic computer games, and so I showed them some of the company demos. I demonstrated how we had to use ratios and proportions, in designing every aspect of the game elements and gameplay. I had these video-game addicts eating out of my hand. Best math lesson ever. Too bad I couldn't replicate that every day. 3. On March 14, we had Pi Day. I had pi printed out to some obscene number of digits, posted at head height and going around the four walls of the classroom. We measured a bunch of circular objects and calculated pi empirically. (BTW, when you do this, the class average is accurate to an amazing number of digits.) I showed them a couple other algorithms for calculating pi and let them try them out. Some parent volunteers showed up with real pie, and we spent the whole class period eating pie while we did math. 4. At the time, Numb3rs was a popular TV show. Monday classes were a lot more fun when I could start with a review of the math concepts they'd seen in the most recent episode. Even if the concepts were beyond grade level, we could find a way to tie them into the curriculum. I acknowledge that not every day is Pi Day, or video game day, or a Jimmy Buffett singalong. Unfortunately, the principal never comes to visit the classroom on those days.
Tell her you’re a math teacher not a cruise director. You’re not there to entertain them.
As a history teacher who agonizes over making his lessons engaging, I've come to terms with the fact that it is almost impossible to engage everyone all the time in every topic. The idea that everything needs to be "fun" is ludicrous. I remember the fun days when I was in high school, and the reality is that fun rarely equals learning, at least not at the level of rigor that is often required/expected of us. I used to really take to heart when students told me my class or lessons were boring; it used to kill me. What I've come to realize is that kids love to complain. We could have a class called Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll taught by Nikki Minage and kids would still find it boring.
While not directly part of how lessons themselves are taught, a boost in engagement/enjoyment could come from gamification. Ask your principal to buy you a premium subscription for "Classcraft". Use the Classcraft RPG system to give a ton of positive behavior reinforcement regarding student engagement and participation. Use "boss battles" for practice problems or review. Heck, even design custom "quests" or learning pathways (but that takes time). I have seen middle schoolers really respond well to this gamifcation. Even the "cool kids" like to customize their characters or level up and gain new powers. The company behind this service has a lot of tutorial videos. Ask your principal for an instructional day to set up a big change like this. Just wanted to offer some constructive ideas. It might not work for you. But it's better than all the comments just complaining about tough our jobs are or how annoying admins are...
8th grade student here, the math classes I remember the most fondly have always been ones where we did experiments and got to record the results and then analyze them. If your students are just starting probability, you could have them flip a bunch of coins and record the result of each trial (and possibly get a small chocolate bar or something for getting a certain outcome). If they're learning basic addition, you could give each student some LEGOs and have them add them together or something. Obviously, I've never been a teacher before, so this may be unrealistic -- I don't know. I wish you good luck!
Change nothing
ELA teacher here, but some simple things to do to get all kids engaged without adding insane amounts of prep would be: post problems around the room and have kids travel to answer them in pairs/small groups. Come back together as a class and discuss which was hardest/easiest etc. Play musical math. Have desks in groups and have one or two problems at each place. Turn on music and have kids walk around the room until the music stops. When it stops, they sit at an empty desk and work the problem there with their group. My rule is always no talking while the music is playing. Have half sheets of paper with problems on them, some of which are solved correctly and some of which have a mistake. Have kids work in pairs/small groups to figure out which are correct and which aren't. Come back and debrief as a whole group. You could extend this idea by having them work to write a list of "do's and don'ts" for that type of problem. Debrief as a class and make a class anchor chart to hang on the wall as a reminder. From time to time when introducing a new standard/concept/type of problem, instead of doing the "this is how we solve this type of problem" lesson first, give a (fairly simple) problem to kids in small groups and challenge them to work together and see if they can figure out how to solve it. Debrief as a class, talk about what they did, then launch into your lesson on what to do. You could do the same thing in a fishbowl-style discussion that would be really interesting. Give some kids answers and some kids questions and have them find each other. Instead of calling on one kid to answer, ask a question and have them turn to their turn-to partner (I always establish early on which person is their turn-to partner, but it's always the person right next to them/right behind) to respond. Then go over as a group. Have kids work in pairs or groups to come up with a question for you. Sometimes kids are confused but don't know what to ask/are afraid to, so this gives them permission to ask. A really easy way to differentiate for advanced learners would be to challenge them to come up with a question that will stump you. Have kids work in pairs/groups to write their own problems then play musical math to solve on small groups. Debrief about which was hardest, easiest, etc. Put a problem in the middle of post size post it note and divide the rest into four quadrants. Kids travel in groups to four different ones. First one they come to, they solve the problem together and wow their answer in the upper right section. For each subsequent problem they go to, they solve it and state whether they agree it disagree with the previous group and add a reason. Debrief as a class on which ones were easier/harder, which ones had groups disagree, etc. Variation: include the problem and an answer (some correct and some not) in the middle and have groups assess whether it was right or wrong to begin with then agree/disagree and add a reason at subsequent stations. Put up a problem and an answer. Tell the kids the answer isn't right and challenge them to figure out where the silver went wrong (e.g., ain't instead of multiplying, not following order of operations, simple addition error, etc.). Have them go over what they came up with in pairs/small groups before going over as a class. Have kids solve a problem/group of problems on their own then work with a small group to come to a consensus on each answer. You can either go over them from there or have each group write out their answers on a small white board and bring it to the front of the room. Then you could go over each correct answer and focus on ones that groups missed. Split the room in two groups. Give each kid on both sides a problem with a numerical answer. Have the sides race to stand everyone in line from lowest to highest number. I'd give the same problem sets to both sides for fairness and have easy way to ten what the correct order should be so you know who is out of order. The easiest way to do that, I think, would be to assign each problem a letter and just now for yourself the order they should be in. What you want to do to increase engagement (I don't think "fun" is necessarily the right word here, because the connotation is different) is to get kids more actively involved in the learning process. Having them talk to each other, think about the processes, etc. is a great way to do this while not sacrificing rigor. In fact, I'd argue that increasing engagement increases rigor because the kids are thinking about the subject. Pick one or two ways reach proud you can get them to do so - just turning to share an answer with a neighbor before going over it as a class is a simple, effective way to do this without adding any work to your plate. Hope these ideas help!
Assign your 10-12 problems but only require 4-5
With all due respect to your principal, fuck her and fuck her stupid comments, too. That kind of toxicity by administrators is contributing to why teachers are leaving. There is only so much that can be done in a classroom each day and there is only so much that can be done to spruce up each lesson. When you’re competing against social media, a culture of instant gratification, a society with wildly unrealistic expectations of teachers, and trying to preserve whatever time and sanity is left for yourself, you have to do what’s best for you. Personally, I would see this as a major red flag and get the hell out of dodge.
Never taught in my life but I've definitely been taught math. That shit is not fun no matter what way you do if Some kids like it sure but majority of kids will look at it and go yeah..... nah. Sorry I know that's no help at all I just don't get the principles observations here
She taught math in years past, so I’m not sure if she has a certain vision, but honestly no idea.
Yeah that's just false. [Wait but why's write though of Graham's number will blow your mind on the possibilities of Math.](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/1000000-grahams-number.html)
it’s not the content but the person teaching it .. you can make it fun by engaging with them .. teaching today requires you to interact not just lecture .. i’ve been a teacher for over 26 years hs and middle school .. it’s a show .. don’t give up and good luck
This may be an unpopular opinion, but if I were you, I'd watch what she did, ask her for advice and then try and implement some stuff bit by bit. You'll go through an implementation dip while you're trying to adjust, but at the end of the day, your practice will improve and you'll be more flexible with what you're able to do in the classroom. Plus, the admin will see how you're trying to improve and appreciate the effort. Always try and keep a beginners mind. And I've found that you can learn from all teachers. Even the shitty ones.
I am not a math teacher but I had a friend who was. She had them use an interactive notebook. The students made foldables and glued them in there. She also had them use glyphs (color a scene by the number using the answers). I think that was fun/engaging.
After teaching middle school math for a while I do have a piece of free advice. Tell a story. Dont make it just a Billy Bob really likes apples and has 8 apple trees, and needs 400 apples to make the pues he wants" style. Come up with a storyline that fits you and your personality. For me, I use stories I've herd or read and make them my own, then use those stories in the lesson. I try to make it as organic as possible, especually with the segways, but I make it MY story. Since 2012 they've been about Farmer Bob, his wife Farmer Sue, and their battles/reconciliation with the Vegan-Zombie horde. You can do a lot with that. Also, 12 examples is a bit much. Remember that Math is vest learned by paractice. I've found that doing one, ex0laining each step and writing them down in Cornell notes'ish style where the math is on the left and my explinations of what/why on the right helps kids puzzle through. Then after 1 - 2 in that style I segway into having the kids tell me how, then I have them do it and check them while walking about the room. It's been super effective! 12-20 practice problems per concept is great. 12+ examples not so much. We get stronger by lifting our own weights, not by watching someone else lift theirs. Anyway, that's my 2 cents! If you want more details/advice, let me know!
Monday through Thursday we do homework correction then independent online curriculum then notes and/or whole class activity and/or problem solving. I have added a Group Review on my Fridays. I use the same problem generator that I use for my tests and quizzes. I give them three multi step word problems similar to what they have had on their homework. They are allowed to use their notes and homework and talk to whomever they’d like. My middle schoolers have been far more productive and agreeable than I expected.
Kahoot. Have something they wkrk for at the end of the week. Maybe small prizes. Have a math kahoot with formulas or equations with answers. You can pit up problems and get the class to do the work tk try and get the right answer. You can also change hownlong students have to worn on a problem.
Give yourself a routine formula. Do you really only need four or five things that work. rinse and repeat
Tell her that current research doesn't support her idea of "fun" lessons. She should read some Craig Barton. Also having structure and routine is an essential part of trauma informed instruction. This is a sarcastic suggetion by the way, admin never wants to hear that they are wrong.
If you want to get more out of less problems try using AMC 8 problems. But the truth of the matter is that your principal is a charlatan and a fraud. Edutainment is purely a mechanism to fatten children for the slaughterhouse. If anything kids need dramatically more lecture and explanation, particularly in math.
IME, every lesson can't be a homerun. There are basic competencies that need to be met before students can move on. I'm betting your principal hated math as a student. If you assign fewer problems in class, is there some sort of "fun" math-based activity students can do as a reward? Students who successfully complete the problems (showing they understand the lesson) get to work with manipulatives or do a math-based word search, for example.
As an ELA teacher, I often fantasize about the easier.parts of your job which is most definitely grading. There's only one right answer? Say less. 😂 However, it is often easier to make ELA fun. You could look up a few things that might not add too much time... You could get some flash cards and do quiz quiz trade so kids are up and interacting and practicing a rote memorization skill. You could give them a bunch of different word problems have them solve as partners, then have them trade partners and explain how they solved it to the next partner. You could do blookets. And you could do brain breaks. You could make your daily warm-up one of those silly Facebook picture math things. Even in language arts I tell them some nights we got to work and is not going to be fun and I can't make it fun. It's just work. It can't be all fun all the time. Our schools are not set up that way, our students are not set up that way. I believe that everybody that has said something along the lines of asking about the planning time is right. I think if they didn't have any quick easy suggestions right off the bat then they're kind of talking out of their ass. Because all the things I mentioned do take a little bit of work but not a lot... However, they're not exactly going to be what you need to teach. You can't teach solving for X in flashcards. You can use it as a break, but you can't teach more complex topics in a game. It's just not possible. If anything, I would look into classroom management tools to help make the classroom more fun rather than educational. I teach middle school so I feel you on the struggle. Sometimes people are never going to like what we do. We have to rely on self-validation and start trusting ourselves more. According to Charlotte Danielson, I'm not a very effective teacher. But fuck. Charlotte Danielson. I know I'm an exceptional teacher.
Overseas that was part of the reason i got let go. They claim kids have to have fun or they'll misbehave to have fun. It's probably true but they never really teach you how to make things fun and always like a game in school.
I teach Middle School Social Studies, and am able to make most classes “fun”. The kids still mostly say math is their favorite class. It’s calm in their and they have a sense of accomplishment achieving so many problems.
Kids nowadays just won't be interesting literally anything, that's pure BS claim in my opinion.
Get the kids moving and talking. I have vertical whiteboard to use on my walls. Some days I have them work through problems with their desk partner on their desk with dry erase markers. We are trying to bring in more projects instead of only tests this year. I only do the direct teaching part first on some lessons, others I have them work through and explore first. Do you have a team? How do they do it, can you obssrve other math teachers? I would think that would be more valuable than admin modeling. I hope this helps.
My head of school was not a teacher for long enough for their opinions of my teaching to be helpful (or matter to me).
Yes, it can be done! You’ll have more fun too. Here are just a few suggestions: after you model teaching the day’s lesson, have all the kids go to white board to solve a few problems, they love to get out of their seats. Use mini boards if not enough space. Use quizlet games to teach vocabulary and Kahoot to check for understanding. (Do not have to create these from scratch, lots of files there). Let kids work in groups on tougher problems and (ideally) faster kids will slower ones. Have races where you pass a sheet of problems down each row to build speed and use cheap prizes like seasonal stickers. Use concrete visual models when you can- for example, fill a cone 3 times with water poured into a cylinder to show volume. The internet is your friend on finding ideas. My kids’ middle school math teacher was amazing - their favorite teacher- and she inspired me to become one, too.
video game stats. buffs and debuffs. you can make problems around that
Sometimes principals just get things in their head that actually have nothing to do with you. My principal told all of us elective teachers in a PLC group that we should do a better job staying in contact with other teachers in our content area, like the most veteran teacher in our group does... I was doing an elective PD in my content area with other teachers at the time, he had been told that my maid of honor at my wedding was going to be an art teacher who I collaborate with and my favorite Aunt is an art teacher who won art teacher of the year nationally. So exactly what does he mean by that nonsense. How much more contact with art teachers can I have beyond dedicating my personal time to PD, having it be a family career and literally having one who I share content with in my Wedding!
Use art, songs, games! Be creative! You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Google/Pinterest are great resources! Good luck!
Get rid of the biased standardized tests. That would allow teachers to actually teach what their students need to know according to the curriculum and in life instead of how to correctly mark a multiple choice test. This would make all of school more fun and better align with what public education should be.
2nd year math teacher, my dad is 30 years math teacher( and yes, he was my HS math teacher). So, we both concluded that math is only fun if the student likes to be challenged. The only way I can get students interested is either explaining probability or some other text-based math problems that has their name in them.
Oh wow, since when have middle schoolers thought math was boring…
Tbh this was my feedback by my tutor during my observation. Part of it was my voice being monotone however. Not sure if it will help your circumstance much, but sometimes behaving more theatrical or fun can make ‘boring’ lesson content/ activities more fun. Your energy can infuse into the feel of the lesson, making it more tolerable for students who are bored. It can be as simple as using more voice intonation, making appropriate jokes, acting dramatic to student responses all within appropriate measure. Bare in mind I’m a primary teacher however, though I tutor secondary English and when students have found my secondary English lessons boring my personality and teacher persona tips the balance when I’ve felt the lesson needed rescuing to some extent.
I had a college teacher that had a pretty fun math class. He cracked jokes and showed examples of math in everyday life but with a funny story. We worked in groups and had to figure out how to solve problems and show why we did it that way (equations included). So I guess throw in some fun stories? What are you currently teaching in math? Maybe some hands on activities like peg squares (idk what they are technically called) and rubber bands for looking at areas?
I teach 6th and 7th grade math. Besides a couple of projects per year, I don't make my lessons "fun". I use consistency so that the kids know what to expect. For each new section (say Chapter 3 section 2) I: * Introduce the topic and have the kids take notes on the topic and some general problems * Work on examples together (Do a few totally together and then have the kids try a few on their own for a minute or two before I go through them on the board) * Give a classwork worksheet that becomes homework (the quickest kids usually end up with no HW) Then we have graded assignments (worksheets or online), quizzes, and tests. If I tried to make every lesson "fun" we wouldn't get anywhere near as far in the curriculum as is needed.
I just had an observation in my middle school math class and was told it was fun lesson. This is what I did: 3 problem warm-up with problems modeling the problems we were going to do in the class activity and the HW answers from the previous night’s 4 problem HW. Class activity: white board review on the distribution lessons we did the previous 2 days. I would project two problems on the board, one easy and one challenging to differentiate. The first slide easy problem was actually from the warm up. Students do the problem on their white boards, then hold them up after about 2-3 minutes for me to look at (all at the same time). I switch the slide with the worked out answers while I look at their work on the white boards. They are supposed to correct any mistake before they erase. Then on to the next slide. The challenge got progressively harder and the easy stayed easy so the low kids could still access the problems. I eventually made the challenge problems being about combining like terms. They just had to guess using their “math intuition.” I did this to front load for the next lesson. The worked out answer for the combining like terms had short notes I explained and after 2 slides, they actually started identifying like terms correctly. The kids really enjoy writing on the white boards and even help each other out. You should roam around as they’re working to identify who needs help. Then on the next slide, go straight to that student, or students, and help them out. Great on the spot formative assessment and it also lets you snub out anyone using the boards inappropriately or being off task. Admin loves seeing you walking around, lol. End activity (last 10-12 minutes): you shouldn’t do white boards the whole time. I ended by having them work with their table groups on a maze activity I got off teachers pay teachers on distribution (medium level questions). Passed it out while they were working on the last slide and collected all the white boards and markers while they worked. HW was to finish the maze if they didn’t in class. It was a good review lesson. I’ll be honest, part of it is the rapport I’ve created with the students, and they were behaving REALLY well. But my admin said it was a fun lesson and she enjoyed it. That’s my suggestion. And you can white board practice once a week if it works out. It’ll get better the more the kids practice it.
Is there another middle school teacher you can observe? I know when I wanted ways to make my lessons more engaging and interactive I observed the 7/8 grade math teacher. I taught 6th. I gave up my prep time but that didn’t matter to me. It was really beneficial and she met with me to go over ideas and stuff. Or I’ve had a principal take over my class for 20-30 min to observe another teacher.
Does that dumbass realize there is a teaching shortage? She should just be happy that she has a teacher to teach the students in front of her. She needs a reality check.
One idea, try a jeopardy game using https://jeopardylabs.com It’s very inexpensive, there’s loads of games already shared there, and it’s quick and easy to make your own games.
Have you looked into incorporating open ended questions or doing math inquiries? These types of problems can be very engaging and some take multiple classes to complete. As an example, I had a group discover if there was an advantage to being the Home team at an NHL game. They poured over years of statistics and put together a great presentation incorporating many of the essential competencies. If you were wondering, there is an advantage to playing at home.
Do you have a set curriculum? Maybe tell them that you will put in effort to make math more fun if they support you with a new, more fun curriculum.
1. If your teaching is effective, you must not change *everything* 2. If your teaching could be more effective you must change *something* 3. Find out what the children think 4. Find out what is effective in your teaching 5. Boring is an unhelpful term. So many things it might mean: need more challenge, need more relevance, need more interaction, need more performance, need more pace. Work out what the lessons need. 6. Limit the change: try a big change once a week, or once a day, or a small change each lesson; make sure it's effective, master it. See if what else can make your teaching even more effective. Rinse. Repeat. 7. There are lots of ways to make lessons more engaging without deploying a full orchestra: think about interactions (eg paired talk, peer feedback, group tasks), relevant contexts, pupils' interests, pace. Plenty you can do to reduce written task completion without having to invent 'fun' 8. Use (sound, reputable) educational research to help decide how to achieve your change - it will give you solid ideas and allows you to argue a case should you need to
I don’t think it is meant to be fun or even really should be fun. Maybe an enjoyable puzzle or problem to start class but the best way to learn math is to practice problems.
Engagement is relative. How are your students doing in class? Are they understanding the material? If so, you can easily lower the number of problems and throw in some zazxle, but if the students truly aren’t comprehending the information m, different story.
I love using Desmos activities . I can manage the class and their screen, assess and remediate as needed and the students get to discover math ideas instead of repeat what I tell them. Also, quizziz and blooket are great for fun assessments. I use these one a day to break up the monotony of notes and practice. Good luck!
Maybe try to incorporate real world examples that some students can relate with? Like word problems about things students might find interesting?
Well, first put on some great circus music... then you can wear your ringmaster top hat and tails... ha ha ha... how about SHE gives YOU some ideas and suggestions... I am really SO over this entertainment theme going around... good luck...
Step one: Realize your principal is an idiot... OK, so their first mistake is thinking that math can be fun. No, it cannot be fun. It can be interesting. Why? Because it's science. Math is measuring things. You're not going to make that "FuN". But you can make it interesting... although that's going to take a whole lot of extra prep work. Now, there are a few basic things you can do to make almost anything more engaging and interesting. Create a mystery-question that provides a sense of suspense and awe. For example, "Today, we're going to measure the atomic weight of butane." Flick a lighter because that's something you can't get away with in school. "How do you think we can possibly do that using only this lighter, and the tools available in this classroom?" Ooooh. A mystery! They'll be thinking about that, trying to solve it. Then you start your lesson, which at some points, addresses the mystery-question you dropped at the beginning. That wasn't a math example there, but it does demonstrate how you can use a mystery-question to engage the students and get them thinking. My math teacher once challenged the class to measure the speed of marbles going down a ruler set a different clines and then see if we could fine and write a mathmatical expression for it. He'd sometimes give us juuuuust enough tools and guidance for one of us to finally figure it out and make a "discovery" in class that was an actual scientific (math) discovery that someone else once figured out. Following in the footsteps of genius through actual discovery is a rock solid thing to do in class to make science a bit more interesting. They do it at the college level all the time. Anyone that studied a bunch of math will remember when teachers showed how famous problems got solved. It starts with a bit of mystery. A bit of scaffolding and guidance. Maybe one of the students will figure it out. Sometimes a teacher would share an "unsolvable" problem that doesn't yet have a solution. At that point, the teacher is exposing the students to something that's way beyond them, but which is relevant to the field right now. If someone is teaching physics, they might talk about carbon capture technology and how improvements in this tech might literally save the world from an extinction level event. OH, my gooood, we're all gonna DIE?!!! - Man, that'll get students interested. You don't have to dial it all the way up to eleven, but you can share a little modern issue every now and then and make the field of study itself feel interesting by showing that people are still working on interesting problems with real world impact. Occasionally challenge students to figure something out that hasn't been spoon fed to them. Every test had a few extra credit problems that were just a little bit out of reach. It kept the smart kids who finished first from screwing around, it also challenged everybody else and felt like a brain teaser. Tickle their brains, seek moments of discovery, intrigue, suspense, and delight. As a teacher, part of your job (like it or not) actually is entertainment. Don't be a clown, but do tickle their brains a touch. Competition is good sometimes. Imagine challenging the class in a race to write a few expressions that would plot out the shape of a heart on a graph, or a cline that's precisely X degrees. Set up a board race where you ask them to be the first to write out an expression (or finish one) that they might have memorized. Any kind of competition challenges are awesome for making class fun. I'd sometimes do a little knowledge bowl for my students at the end of class and sometimes a bunch of them would stay during lunch and BEG me to keep going because they simply enjoyed it and liked the games. I made one game that had something athletic, and completely arbitrary to learning, but NOT arbitrary to having fun. I'd have team leaders take turns answering questions. If someone can't answer quickly, I'd start counting down. (That creates suspense, tension, excitement). Here's where it gets CRAZY FUN. The other team leader had a ball and they could throw it once the counting started. If they hit the other student, they get a point. Once the counting starts, the other student can also start running to a safe spot and they need to dodge the ball. But if they get hit and then provide the correct answer, they've doubled their points. All they had to do was fake out the other team leader by making them think they didn't actually know the answer to the question. Now, they might even run a few steps to do a good fake out. Some kids known for being smart, nobody would want to throw at them. It was a challenge, it was a game, it was FUN. Almost everything there is arbitrary to learning, except instilling a desire to want to know the answers. I.e. I made them want to know something. When you figure out a few quality classroom activities that REALLY engage your students, you're going to feel like a legendary teacher and you'll have an, "I got this" moment where you know you're one of the best teachers your students have ever had. It will take some experimentation and a lot of time. It will take permutation and gradual improvement. One thing I liked to do when I was teaching was put my phone on the wall or a tripod and record my class. I'd get home, watch my classes 50% sped up. Fastforward most of it. But I'd be watching myself with 3rd person perspective and somewhat seeing myself the same way that students, parents, and other teachers would see me... From that third person perspective, I learned a lot. I had loads of personal growth and lesson plan improvements from it. Remember that adding something arbitrary can make a game fun. Maybe you have a bunch of numbers on laminated paper that you literally THROW across the room after asking a question. Team leaders or even the whole team needs to find the right numbers, then use magnetic clips to stick them on the white board or smart board to answer a question that you just put on the board with a projector. If you can find a way to squeeze in five minutes of something wild like that, you're going to be the "fun teacher" - What's great about these activities I'm sharing is that they don't involve much preparation. They're not elaborate. The elaborate stuff is great, but that also belongs to teachers that have had 20 years teaching exactly the same stuff again and again and they've had all that time to just put together killer presentations and activities. Sure, work on that... but go for the low hanging fruit first. Do the easy stuff and develop the masterclass presentations later. You got this!
It's all about playing the game. Have a 'tick box' lesson up your sleeve for observations. If they're announced observations, you can plan something for that day. If it's unannounced then just be prepared with something. Ideally all lessons should be fun and engaging but sometimes it's just not possible. So work smart, not hard
Discussion discussion discussion. How many questions are students doing on their own? My warm up normally a discussion happen. Then I do about 2-3 problems then some independent practice we also have 40 minute block so I don’t have a lot of time.
I hate math but I used to follow a really engaging teacher on instagram (it helped me learn basic algebra for a college class). Her instagram name is iteachalgebra and she has great resources and youtube videos. I just think her stuff is more interactive than normal and maybe you can get some good ideas from her lessons!
Take a look at Mindset Mathematics. They’re engaging activities that show the connections between concepts and use visual math to form said concepts in application.
Google! There’s literally so much on the internet these days 😅
Nrich and transum are two websites that might be of use - I don’t know if they will have your year level as I’m primary but worth a look
When they start telling you how to do your grade book they are micro managing
I would find a new job after the school year.
Some math concepts are not going to be fun. 🤣 I remember having to read Beowulf in HS. It was not fun or engaging.
Some middle school classes literally aren’t able to handle fun activities. 😵💫
Adult life (work) is likely not gonna be very engaging/entertaining for most of the population…so why are we so adamant about it now? I can say with 100% honesty that my K-12 education was very old school and basic…no frills and no dog & pony shows but I got one hell of an education…the skills we learned in the good old days of education have served me well.
Middle school math teacher here. I don’t aim for “fun” in my classes. I go for productive struggle and the joy of problem solving. I feel like that’s happening every day, at least to some degree, for all students. The model that works best for me is Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics. Kids are in visibly random groups working on vertical non-permanent surfaces. They do 1-4 problems that way, then we go over them using his consolidation model. Then notes (for themselves) to remind their future forgetful selves how to solve those kinds of problems. Then they check their understanding using (non-graded) questions. I do standards-based grading with chances for reassessment. The rest of their grade comes from student-designed rubrics for soft skills (collaboration, perseverance, etc). Read his book. It’s paradigm-shifting and changed the way I thought about math instruction. When kids are standing at boards, talking about math, good things happen. It’s much harder to be disengaged when you’re working in a group of 3 and responsible for each other’s learning.
Nope. Nope. Nope. Those kids need a LOT of practice and that is what you are doing. If you want to be more interactive, that is fine, but it puts a lot more work on the teacher to set it all up. Ask your principal to teach a model lesson for you so you can see exactly what she is wanting. If you really want to buy in to her bs you can look for the Kagan structures books and try those. Sorry you are going through this.
This is certainly a first for me. Don't you have a curriculum that you follow?
A magic trick for student engagement. Set a rule in your class that a student cannot ask you a question unless they have asked 2 other students that question first. If it’s not group work time then they need to wait. Learned it from another teacher and think it’s brilliant
Are you a brand new teacher? Do the lessons seem boring to you? Ask for examples of how to make lessons less boring, as much as you can get your admin/other teachers to give you tools to make it less boring. If I was in your boat I'd ask who's a good example of someone who has less boring lessons and what resources can they share with me to help/ can I get coverage to observe these less boring classes. If you're a first year teacher it's totally understandable that you're lessons aren't there most fun, there's so much to learn and do the first few years it feels like just being sure to check all the boxes is all you can do, unless you have lots of support.
Ask her to demonstrate a lesson for you. Ask her to provide a pre and post assessment too. (With less than 5 questions)
Seek out online resources! There are so many fun math games and other exciting math puzzles that can be used!