This summer much of our focus in this class has been focused on writing lessons and thinking about ways of improving our students mathematical thinking. This is a very important discussion and I have learned a lot through this process. Though it may seem obvious, this is my purpose in teaching math. I want my students to become better problem solvers, and to learn to think deeply about math.
I preface all of this, because I foresee this next academic year being more challenging for me to accomplish this goal than in any of the previous years. As my title to this post suggests, at West Valley High School this next year we are transitioning back to a “traditional” delivery schedule of 55 minute class periods. For the past three year, my entire teaching career, we have had 78 minute periods. Needless to say, this is a dramatic change. It also must be noted that we are transitioning from trimesters to semesters, so there is really no loss in “contact” time with students.
During these past years I have seen great value in much of the daily routines that we part of a 78 minute period (entry task/warm-up, time to answer questions from the previous homework, time to teach a complete lesson, and often some time to allow the students to begin working on their homework). I realize that in losing 23 minutes, some things are going to need to change. So my question is this: for those of you with experience teaching with 55 minute periods, or any of you with helpful ideas, what is the best way to use the 55 minutes I will have to optimize my students’ math performance?
-Aaron
I will say be well prepared with the lessons and use entry tasks for review or diagnostic test. Although I have longer periods, I worked in a school where the periods where 45 and 55 min. periods. The teachers at that school that had the best time management were the ones that had a well prepared lesson. They also allowed time on Fridays to review the lessons if necessary or to have a short quiz. I’m not saying that with longer periods you don’t have to be prepare, I’m just saying that you have more flexibility. So have a time during the lesson for independent work and for challenging questions. Group work is one of the best strategies for discussion, in my opinion.
Thanks Laura for your thoughts. I know what you mean by being better prepared. I am very lucky that I have taught mostly all the material now, so being prepared for me will need to be: focusing on efficiency. There is little time to be “wasted” when you are down to 55 minutes. I like your suggestions about Fridays. I am thinking that I could make Fridays a day to really focus on problem solving in my classes. Maybe take a look at an activity that can really engage my students.
We have 55 minute periods at my school and I usually don’t have any problem getting all of the stuff you mentioned above in. (Warm-Up, homework questions, lesson, start on homework.) I think the main difference you will see is that your lessons will need to be shorter. I find that a lof of sections in our book take 2 days to get through. So maybe just splitting some of the harder lessons you have over two days might work for you.
Also, I will admit, I don’t always focus on problem solving as much as I should. So maybe 1 day can be the lesson, and another the problem solving activity that corresponds with it. Hope this helps!
I have thought a lot about this over the last 5 years. When I was teaching I did not see any issue with having students finish the reflective questions as homework or finishing the activity the next day. When I taught in college classes I used both and did not give this teaching questions any thought; but now I see this issue as a very important one. It is the reflective questions or true problems that usually occur at the end of an activity or end of an assignment that have the most potential for getting the students to think. In a 75 minute class you can review student work and have a discussion about the question or problem and then have the students make some final written or verbal comments that show real insight. The typical HS student will not go home and give real good thought to a problem at the the end of an assignment and be ready to discuss it the next day. I do not like this process because most student do not think well at home (HS or college). If you continue the lesson the next day student might have forgot what was done and then you must take time to review the activity (you just lost 15 minutes).
I think you have got to guess right or have multiple break points in an activity so that you optimize the important parts of activities or assignments.