Using Rotations with Eureka! by Kimberly Smith

Using Rotations with Eureka!
Imagine having the chance to meet with each of your students during small group time, an opportunity for all students to use technology, and some time for hands-on learning to take place.  If this seems like an impossible scenario during your math block, it’s not!
In my last blog post, I discussed using 10-minute warm-ups in order to bring in number talks, technology, spiral review, and fluency on different days of the week.  In this blog post, you’ll learn how to bring some of these options into one day of Eureka Math.  This option will not always work with your math block since some lessons take a lot longer than others, but the kids definitely enjoy rotations, and so do I!  What I like about this option is that you have the opportunity to really hone in on all of your students’ understanding of the current lesson.  This gives you the chance to talk out misconceptions and see who might need a little extra TLC.  Your students will also work on another activity that may be hands-on or something a little more exciting and fun.
	As a math teacher, I understand how difficult it can be to teach a lesson a day.  We stress because we know that many of our students haven’t fully attained the concept in such a short amount of time.  With rotations, you’ll have some peace of mind because your kids will have four different stations to practice the concept at hand.  What’s nice is that as you meet with groups, you can hold back those students who are really stuck and keep them with you for the remainder of the rotation time if you deem it necessary.
“Never be afraid to try something new, because life gets boring when you stay within the limits of what you already know.” -Unknown
Before rotations begin each day, you’ll need to first teach the lesson.  This may mean shortening some of the fluency activities and teaching a little bit faster, but your students will revisit what they’ve missed during your rotations.  Here is what you can do in order to prepare for math rotations:
	In order to get your rotations running smoothly, you’ll have to do a little bit of prep and planning beforehand.  First, you’ll want to figure out how many and what rotations you’ll offer.  I like to have four different rotations with students spending about 12 minutes in each station.  Click on the link below if you’d like to see some of my notes: My Math Rotation Notes & Ideas.  Here are my four stations: Meet with the Teacher/Teacher Time:  Students get small group instruction as we go over another example from our lesson or a Problem Set problem.  Here, each student gets a turn to explain a step or ask any questions they have.  You can also choose to use whiteboards, so you can quickly assess understanding.  This is also a great time to bring in your Eureka debrief! Independent/Partner Practice:  Kids work on the Problem Set problems either independently or with a partner from their rotation group.  This station is set up right next to where I teach small group, so if they’re stuck, they can listen in on what I’m teaching on the Smartboard.  I also like to check in on them to make sure they’re able to work independently. Hands On/Math Center Fun Activity/Math Games:  This gives kids a chance to try the math in a different way.  Sometimes, we find great activities online that we’d love our students to try but know there’s not enough time with Eureka to fit it in.  This is where you can bring these activities into play.  A hands-on activity would also be fun for kids because they can really see how the math can be used in the real world.  Math games are another engaging way for kids to attack the content or work on fluency skills. Tech Time:  If you have limited technology, this may be a way for you to bring in some more computer time into your math block.  I made my students tech cards with several websites and their login information, so they don’t have to waste time trying to remember how to log in.  Instructions are left at the tech station, so students know exactly what is expected of them.  Here I like to have my students work on assignments on tenmarks.com or zearn, practice fluency facts on xtramath.org, take quizzes on Kahoot or Formative, write a blog on Kidblog or Google Classroom, or even try some coding!  Videos from sites like embarc.online or Khan Academy can also be useful in order for kids to review the math lesson learned that day. Please feel free to comment below should you have any questions, comments, or concerns.  I’d be happy to give you more information! Educating together, Kimberly Smith Loya

Full STEAM Ahead!

Full STEAM Ahead!
Last month my classroom was buzzing with excitement as we embarked on our first engineering project.  One of the biggest challenges I faced when designing the lesson was finding enough instructional time during the week for science.  The schedule I have this year requires a shared block of time for both science and social studies.  Like many teachers, I feel the stress of trying to fit it all in.  The primary focus has been on Language Arts and math,  leaving little time for social studies or science. Because time is limited I knew that I wanted to create an engineering project that would build upon the students’ learning in ELA and Math.  This way I could extend students’ understanding of science and engineering concepts during other content blocks.
Crosscutting Concept 2: Cause and Effect:   Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted.  Deciphering causal relationships, and the mechanisms by which they are mediated, is a major activity of science and engineering. For this project, I gave my students the following engineering design challenge:  “Build a prototype of a house that can withstand an earthquake simulation.  Your model must show a cause and effect relationship.”  There are 7 crosscutting concepts (ccc).   Most of the CCCs would have fit nicely into this lesson.  I chose Cause and Effect as the first crosscutting concept to introduce my students to because it is already familiar to them in other contexts. After deciding which CCC I wanted to focus on, I was able to create a list of prompts to help guide my students learning.  I found a couple of great resources to help me start. Take a look at what I found: This link has amazing prompts divided into each of the 7 CCCs. http://stemteachingtools.org/assets/landscapes/STEM-Teaching-Tool-41-Cross-Cutting-Concepts-Prompts.pdfr This link gives symbols you can use with each of the CCCs. https://crosscutsymbols.weebly.com/ Here is a great Google slidedeck with graphic organizers for each CCC.  (Tip:  Make a copy of the slidedeck and save to your drive if you want to edit them.) https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YNl4U76UaIEiLR2zD2QaAsgrO515lWFpCsGSbZgKsBo/edit#slide=id.p What Worked Students were really excited about this lesson.  The engagement was off the charts!  It was a great motivator throughout the week.  Connections were made to cause and effect relationships in the stories we were reading.  We even looked for cause and effect in math (error analysis).  I found the graphic organized mentioned above to be a helpful way to discuss cause and effect.   What I Would Change Since this was our first project the students needed a lot of time to make their prototypes.  Only one group was able to finish their prototype and modify their design.  The rest of the students finished but did not get to modify their work.  They gave a verbal description of what they would change instead. Let’s make connections, Alina Padilla

Universal Design for Learning

Universal Design for Learning

As I mentioned in my last blog, I’ve been learning about the principles of UDL by slowly reading my way through Katie Novak’s book, UDL Now! Although Novak is quite adept at breaking down difficult concepts into manageable bites, I am a “slow and steady wins the race” kind of person. Like all my fellow OMSD teachers, I have a lot on my plate--McGraw Hill Unit assessments, report cards, staff meetings, PLCs, and so on. Although I wasn’t necessarily looking for “one more thing” to do, something phenomenal fell right into my lap. The UDL framework may very well change the way I approach every decision in my classroom. I see the potential for UDL to Unleash a host of possibilities for me and my students., to Disencumber my students by removing barriers to their learning and to Liberate me, as the teacher, so that I can provide the most appropriate learning opportunities
In my last blog, I likened educators to stonemasons--reconstructing our learning environments year after year. Sometimes we use the same bricks (previously introduced district initiatives and mandates) and sometimes we use new ones. Although we are required to follow certain protocols to ensure equity for all of our students, as creators, we want our “building” to reflect our creativity. As I reflected on the UDL Guidelines regarding Engagement, Representation, and Action and Expression, I made a number of connections. Although I don’t have the desire or time to toss out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, when it comes to all the teaching methods I have learned over the years at OMSD, I can certainly tweak my practice to ensure greater success for both me and my students.
“When we ask all students to do the same learning task in the same way, we have no idea what INDIVIDUAL children are capable of.”--Dr. Bertie Kingore
I decided to draw clear and purposeful connections between what I was already doing and UDL. I pulled some of the tenets of UDL to see if I could connect any dots and I was pleasantly surprised by what I discovered: UDL encourages teachers to build fluencies with graduated levels of support for practice and performance. Isn’t this also one of the goals of Eureka Math? UDL tells us to promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation. Isn’t this also considered a growth mindset? UDL tells us to vary the methods for response and navigation. This sounds a lot like Kagan to me. UDL wants us to Promote understanding across languages. Wait, doesn’t this sound like our McGraw-Hill E.L.D. program? UDL wants us to clarify vocabulary and symbol. Don’t we do this every day as part of our McGraw Hill reading program?. UDL tells us to foster collaboration and community. This is a core tenet of Project-Based Learning. UDL tells us to minimize threats and distractions. In my last blog, I included this quote from Stephen Krashen, “The affective filter can be prompted by many different variables including anxiety, self-confidence, motivation and stress.” We can’t learn if we feel threatened. UDL tells us to Highlight patterns, critical features, big ideas, and relationships. G.A.T.E.  Icons come to mind. UDL tells us to Guide information processing, visualization, and manipulation. This makes me think of Thinking Maps. With the highest English Language Learner population in the district, I am constantly searching for ways to build bridges. I owe it to my students to leave no stone unturned when it comes to brain-friendly, research-backed education. UDL promises to make learning accessible to all students and that’s exactly who I’ve been tasked to educate--ALL students.
Still Trying to Connect the Dots, Lola E. Jollie

Eureka! We’ve Struck Math Talk!

Eureka! We’ve Struck Math Talk!
Helping students be successful with Eureka Math is not an easy task (especially in the upper grades)!  It was definitely not a simple venture for us as teachers to learn how to teach Common Core with Eureka Math (we all remember that hurdle right?!) So how can we as educators, help ourselves to help our students not only BE successful in Math today, but to FEEL successful in Math today??  There’s no easy answer to this question, however, as mentioned in my last two blogs, student engagement is everything!  When we think of collaborative conversations, many of us immediately think of ELA.  Naturally, collaborative conversations in ELA provide vast opportunities for collaborative talk and lends itself to helping students achieve a level of thinking at a Depth of knowledge 3 and 4 (as you've seen in my last two blogs). However, these same results can be achieved when you incorporate these academic discussions during Math as well.  Not to mention the added powerful benefit to the students’ learning through their collaboration with one another!			Here are some video clips of my students participating in a variation of the "All-Write-Round-Robin" Kagan strategy.  Where each group of 4 was assigned a math problem.  The students within each group first worked the problem out individually.  Then took turns sharing out in their group explaining how they solved the problem, the steps they took, etc.  The group then discusses and decides together on the “best” way to solve the problem and writes out a solution as a group.
"Students who are inattentive, withdrawn, and disengaged in the classroom have poorer academic performance when compared to engaged students." -Kathy Dyer, NWEA So how do you get your students to have productive and effective conversations during Math, that contribute to their success?? Here, you will see how effortless it can be to implement collaborative conversations via Kagan engagement strategies in Eureka Math- WITHOUT taking away any additional instructional time!
	There’s not many things more satisfying as a teacher than when you model good teaching strategies for your students, and then watch them apply these same strategies when working with their peers.  I have watched my students stumble upon so many “ah-ha” moments, where they catch and learn from their mistakes when engaging in the Rally-Coach Kagan structure.  This is the deeper level of learning we see when  students are responsible for sharing their learning, learning from their peers, and collaborating with one another. This deeper level of learning and thinking has become very evident as I watch my students engage in the Rally-Coach Kagan strategy on a daily basis. Below you will see clips of my students utilizing this strategy during Math to “teach” one another.  This strategy involves only minimal amounts of time to “train” the kids to do this properly, and ZERO prep for the teacher, yet yields amazing progress and growth among the students.  That’s what I call a “win-win!!”
“Tell me and I forget.  Teach me and I remember.  Involve me and I learn.” -Benjamin Franklin Here my students are engaging in the Rally-Robin Kagan strategy.  This is where the students have a designated amount of time that I give them (usually 60 seconds, or sometimes no time limit at all) where they have to take turns going back and forth with their partner, each sharing a different answer to the question I posed.  I tell the kids to think of it as being like a “ping-pong ball" going back and forth!  Here, I displayed the Eureka Math “warm-up” activity for that days lesson which required them to skip- count by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, and 6s to a designated number, both counting forwards and backwards. They absolutely LOVE doing this! Get started implementing collaborative conversations and engagement activities in Math today! Here are some simple steps to take: Start implementing the Kagan Rally-Robin (ping-pong ball) strategy for the “warm-ups” portion of Eureka Math (as seen in the third video).  This is easy to do, requires no prep on your part, and the kids love it!  Display the warm-up question(s), let them know which partner will be starting (A or B), set the timer and let them go! Easy and engaging! As soon as I tell the kids we will be doing Rally-Robin they ALL turn to each other and whisper "YESSSSS!" They love it! Have students work in Rally-Coach (Kagan) pairs for designated portions of the Problem Set (as seen in the second video).  This ensures that no kiddos are left completely confused and blankly staring at their workbook when you're assisting other students.  If this strategy is implemented properly, ALL students can be successful in completing their problem sets (of course you will need to make sure that you have strategically paired students by mixed ability to support their success).   While students are doing this, you can pull your small group that you’d like to assist that day or work with students one-on-one. Have students engage in the Kagan strategy “All-Write-Round-Robin”  (see my video caption from the first video for a brief description of this process). This takes a small amount of training to teach the kids how to work and talk "collaboratively" with each other, but the more you have them do it the more successful they become! Utilizing this structure guarantees that all students are held accountable by participating,  listening, helping, and sharing their thought processes.  Again, this ensures that they will have conversations about what/how they are solving Math problems, and are less likely to make errors, or will see their errors and are able to correct them through the power of discussion. I use this structure periodically for the Eureka Math lessons that are entirely word problems. I will give each group of 4 a different problem from the problem set (as shown in the video). Once they have solved as a group, they share out with the class. My kids actually love solving word problems now because of this process! Benefits (of engagement structures)for  the kids: Learning from each other, having academic discussions about Math, learning how to “explain” their thought processes, and having fun learning! Benefits (of engagement structures) for the teacher: Students are engaged and will remain on task allowing you to work individually with a student or small group of students without worrying so much about whether or not the rest of your class is on task, working and learning.  Students have practice with “reasoning” skills as they have to “explain” and demonstrate how they solved math problems to their peers.  I have actually very recently noticed my students doing this ON THEIR OWN (explaining/rationalizing their answers to their teammates) even when I have not asked them to do so!💗 This goes back to what I mentioned in my first blog about creating/developing that "safe" classroom climate where students are not afraid to make and admit their mistakes, and feel comfortable sharing with one another.💕 Collaboratively Learning, Megan Brown megan.brown@omsd.net

Interacting with the Text

Interacting with the Text 

Posters I use while we interact and annotate various text.

Many people today identify themselves as "hands on learners". This is really great, we learn by doing and interacting with tools so we can complete a task. Remember when smartphones hit the scene. The only way we learned how to use those sometimes pesky devices was by interacting with them,and pressing all the right and sometimes wrong buttons. So how do we get students to press all the right buttons while reading a text? How do we get students interacting with fiction and informational text we read in class ? I would like to suggest using various  annotations/cognitive markers. A few examples are Notice & Note Signposts, Depth and Complexity Thinking Prompts, and annotations, 
you or students can create.

INCORPORATING ANNOTATIONS, ALSO CALLED COGNITIVE MARKERS, WHILE READING A TEXT WITH STUDENTS, WILL PROVOKE REFLECTING, RESPONDING, AND THINKING.

 I'm the type of teacher who likes to implement new things. When something doesn't work, I file it away to try again later, but when something does work I invest some energy into it and incorporate it into my teacher toolbox. 
After reading the books Notice & Note and Reading Non-Fiction, I made some charts (pictured above), and I got to work. Tired of my same ol' boring way of reading with the class I passed out a simple T-Chart, and told the students to grab their favorite writing utensil along with our reading material and it happened. We started interacting with the text. As we read we stopped and used "noticed and note" signpost strategies on one side of our T-Chart. On the other side we reflected on, commented or discussed our annotations relating to what we noticed in the text.  From the first day of implementing this notice and note strategy, I could affirmatively we have used many different styles of thinking maps, t-charts, and teacher created activities while reading, interacting, and annotating various text. The students do not get bored and the novelty of this activity stays relatively high because you and the students can create signpost, or symbols, for specified text. 

THESE BOOKS ARE GREAT RESOURCES,TO GUIDE YOU INTO YOUR FIRST STEP TOWARD LEARNING HOW TO TEACH STUDENTS TO INTERACT AND ANNOTATE A TEXT.
(you may also find yourself interacting and annotating texts when you read on your personal time) :) 

I highly encourage you to take some time and learn how you can implement annotations, and notice and note reading strategies into your ELA time. Once you learn the process of interacting with the text, there is little prep involved, and there is a big payoff because students will surprise you with how many "signpost", they notice while reading!

Uniquely Teaching,
-Carlos Gonzalez
carlos.gonzalez@omsd.net

Eureka: Expressions and Equations!

This past week my 7th graders were introduced to the concept of Expressions.  The activity involves inquiry and therefore, the students were not given any instructions other than to place terms that they thought went together.  They needed to write down their answers in their math interactive notebooks.  They were timed and asked to move to another group four times.  After the activity, I asked students to tell me what terms went together and why.  The conversations we had were very powerful and provided insight as to how they understood combining like terms.  Check out the short 50  second clip and listen to the questions that I pose.  Remember that students have not had previous instruction for this skill.

      

I designed this warm up activity after watching another Spotlight teacher do her warm ups in a similar fashion.  I modified mine for a middle school setting by restricting the number of problems and limiting the time to 1 minute per problem.  A few things happened as a result of this strategy.  One, students walk around the room while they discuss math.  Two, they have an opportunity to discover math skills before actual delivery of instruction takes place.  It is important for me to listen to where students are in terms of the concepts or skills, so I can guide my instruction.  When students are given an opportunity to discuss the mathematics, they are developing ideas and making sense of problems.  This builds confidence in working with mathematics and gets them ready to receive new knowledge.
	It is my goal for this blog to give you resources for the talk moves that I use regularly with my students.  Here is a video resource for you to watch if you are inclined to do so.   https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-ells-to-participate-in-discussions-ousd
During this short clip you hear Melody state her reasoning for placing certain terms together.  I had to ask more questions to push her to consider other options in doing the activity.  As the year continues, I notice Melody getting more frustrated with the math.  She has also started dance in the after school program and refuses to stay for tutoring.  I’m disappointed but will not give up on her.
	Feel free to send me your comments after you have read and seen the video.  I welcome all constructive criticism.  Have a fantastic rest of your day! Hilda Castillo
Click here to schedule a visit	Hilda.Castillo@omsd.net