Collaborative Group Work with Add-Em Up

In my research for methods to get students working on the concepts we were learning, I found this blog post by Sara Van Der Werf where she described the review activity she called "Add-Em up." In Precalculus we were working on solving exponential equations. These have numerical answers, which works for add-em up. I made two sets of cards with 8 questions each using questions from our curriculum's notes and homework. One set was printed on red paper and the other set was on green paper. 

Since my classroom is a lab room, I have black lab tables for desks which we often write on with chalk markers. I went to each group and wrote the number they were hoping to add up to in the color that matched the set of cards they were working on. Students worked on the problems with chalk markers on the tables. Even upper class men enjoy writing on desks! 

One of our administrators came in during the class and took some pictures, so I have some to share. One direction that I didn't think to give out was not to erase their work before they were finished adding all of the answers. One group had done some erasing for more room, but then had a harder time finding their mistake when the numbers didn't add up. I also wanted to make sure to see their work and thinking before they did any erasing.  

I used this add-em up activity in other units as well, but with even less prep. I just told students what questions from notes or homework I wanted them to work on and gave them the total they were supposed to add up to. 

Egg Drop Challenge

As we were wrapping up our unit on forces and interactions in Physical Science, I wanted the kids to have the opportunity to apply their knowledge and also have some practice with the engineering process. For our last class before the unit test, we had an egg drop challenge.

I did some research on line, but many of the challenges out there are for students to build an apparatus at home and bring it in for the competition. Since I only see my students for one 90 minute session a week, they are busy during the week with reading the chapter and doing other assignments. I wanted students to have the opportunity to test designs and make improvements as well as practice working as a team.  So, I pilfered ideas mainly from this document and put together what would be my student's in class building challenge.

Students had about 70 minutes to design and build their egg holder. Some were a little slow to start, but by the end they were all fully engaged. If I were to do this again, I'd try to figure out some way to limit the amount of glue from the glue gun used per team. I had about 7 sticks (for a full sized glue gun) and it was all used before some teams had a chance to use it even once. It was primarily one team that went hog wild with it.

In the end, of the seven teams, three of them successfully dropped their egg and had no damage to the egg. The other four were valiant attempts, all of which were exciting to watch.

Here are the directions that I gave students.  It also includes the list of materials that I provided each team. All of it fit in a gallon ziplock bag. Three of the teams asked if they could use the gallon bag, and I did allow them too--even though it wasn't on their list. For students' notebooks, I gave them this reflection sheet. I also made these score sheets. These scores did not effect their lab grade, but was used to decide some fun prizes. In the end, we did not measure the distance from the target since we had to drop them on the stairs and the egg holders were flying everywhere off the steps.

First Day of School Plans for Physical Science (Part 1)

I cannot even tell you how tickled I was last year to see that Sarah Carter of Math = Love was teaching Physical Science. I knew I'd be teaching physical science this year, and would have resources available from her blog to use. As I figured, I am starting the year with two activities she blogged about.

I love having students work in collaborative groups. I wrote my master's thesis about it! One of my grad school classes actually had Elizabeth Cohen's Designing Groupwork as a text. I plan to use "Broken Circles" from this book a week or two after school starts. But more on that later. What I'm going to use to start training students in collaborative work is the exercise "Build It." from the book Get it Together: Math Problems For Groups Grades 4-12. Sarah blogged about it here. The directions and cards are available from Stanford University. I did rework the directions slightly to work with the materials I had (Legos) and to work with the titles I had for roles that students play in their group. Here's the direction sheet each group will get:

Build It

Everyone Gives Information

Supplies: (To be picked up by the materials manager)

1. Baggie with Build It clue cards (start with Built It #1 cards, only take one set at a time, come back for the others when you are finished with your current set, and return the set you are finished with)
2. A set of square Legos (2 each of red, yellow, orange, blue, purple, green)
3. A piece of graph paper

Objective: Your group's goal is to build structures described in the clue cards, following the rules below.

Rules:

1. The Materials Manager will open one envelope and pass all the clues out to members of the group.
2. Each of you, may look at your own clue(s) and tell your group what it says, but do not show the cards to anyone else.
3. Build it!
4. When the group is done, review your clues to make sure that you really are finished. (The Monitor should give final approval.)
5. The Recorder should sketch your solution on graph paper.
6. Return the cards to the front and try the next puzzle following the rules above.
7. When time is up, return all cards in their baggies, and all Legos to the front.

Discuss the following question:

How did your group know that you had solved the puzzles?

Adapted, with permission, from Get It Together, © 1989 The Regents of the University of California. Program for Complex Instruction — Stanford University.

I printed and laminated all of the build it direction cards and bagged up the appropriate Legos (thanks to my younger two daughters who have quite the Lego obsession). Last night I asked my mom (who is visiting) and my 15 year old daughter to be guinea pigs and try this out, since in general I don't like to do activities cold in class. I am ashamed to admit this, as someone who has taught Geometry, but we decided that edges were the lateral surfaces of the Legos and the faces were the top and bottom. I can assure you that Build It #1, #3, and #4 will not work with these incorrect definitions. Fortunately, my mathematician husband came in and asked some clarifying questions about edges and faces and light-bulbs lit up.  The builds went much better after that. I decided that I will give students these definitions in diagram form at the beginning so they can get to figuring out how to work together right away.

We did find one card that didn't work in the Build It Between set of directions.  There are two cards, one that says, "The green cube is between the orange cube and the yellow cube." and another says, "The orange cube is between the green cube and the yellow cube." I think the easiest fix is to leave one of those cards out. We put the row together by leaving out, "The green cube is between..."

In our attempt to understand the directions when we were confusing what an edge was, I googled Build It to see if I could find some pictures of solutions. Instead of solutions, I found another cooperative group building exercise that I think I'll use a couple of weeks into the school year.  The document is here. In this exercise students use clue cards to build a city block. 

This tower needed a view from the bottom to see all of the blocks.

Go, Go, Gadget...

I've moved onto another part of developing the game of Physical Science.  Another element of the game comes in the form of "items." Since we're going with an Inspector Gadget theme, I'm calling them "gadgets."

Students earn these gadgets several different ways.  I wanted to make finishing homework extra rewarding. If students earn their badge for successfully completing the work for every chapter in a unit, then they get a mini-spy glass gadget (which is a 2 x 3 inch card).  This allows them to bring an index card of information with them to the unit test.  If they do a superb job on an assignment from each chapter and therefore get a star on each badge in that unit, they get a mega-spy glass gadget. Then they may use their entire notebook for the test.

The rest of the gadgets will be given for soft skills I want to encourage in the class. I think it's so valuable to be able to work well in a group, to stay engaged through an entire task, and to do their best work. I'm sure there will be other things I want to encourage and will add them as I go.  At the end of the class, I plan to pick the group (called squads) that worked together best and each will get to pick a gadget card.  The group who scored the most points the week before will each get to draw a card.  I'll also pull them out when someone does an exceptional job with a task.

There are cards to help a group during review games, to help individually on a test, to allow them to break some rules of the game, and to get a little treat occasionally.  Many will be valuable to their group, and I'm aiming for some peer pressure from group members to make sure each of them are keeping up with the class.

Students will be allowed to trade cards at certain times and will hopefully encourage the social gamers.  There is also a card I give them all to start with.  If they ever don't complete their work, they have to hand that card in.  Without that card, they can't trade or use any of the other cards they have.

To hold earned cards, there will be a baseball card holder taped into the front cover of their composition notebook with clear mailing tape. Since it's a little bit too big for that area, the top will be folded over and fastened in place with Velcro.  I am a little nervous about the cards falling out of the top row.  My 7th grader suggested a little bit of washi tape over those three openings. I may let students decide how they'll secure the top row.

Here are the names of the gadgets, what the gadgets allow, and how they are earned.

Gadgets

Item	Power	How to Earn
Mini spy glass	Bring index card during test	Earn all badges for that unit by completing all normal case work with a passing grade
Mega spy glass	Use notebook during test	Earn stars on all badges for unit by doing exceptional work on normal or special cases for each chapter
PI badge	Allows trading, allows use of all other gadgets.	Given, lost if normal case load isn’t completed, returned when caught up
Steps retracer	May complete more than one special case for a chapter	These are given to the group who has earned the most points in a week, to a group who has demonstrated exceptional collaborative skills, or has done exceptional work in class on a project, or to a person finding an Easter egg.
Time machine	May complete a special case from a past unit
Sweet Stock	Pick from the candy supply
Loot lifter	Pick from small items
Doubler	Holder may take two prizes, or a large one if at level 2
Interrogation Minimizer	On multiple choice test questions, holder may ask teacher to eliminate 2 incorrect choices.
Executive Pardon	Allows holder to submit work 1 week late without penalty.
Spring Shoes	Allows user to skip another groups’ turn during a review game.
Secret Storage	Allows user to place more than one card of the same type in the same slot of the gadget holder.
Software Update	Allows user to trade a card with the teacher. (once at level 3, can ask for a specific card, under level 3 has to pick randomly)
Flash Bang	Allows user to double the value of a review question for their group.
Super Sonic Ears	Allows user to ask for a hint on a test question.

I used google drawings to make the cards.  Each student will have a baseball card holder in his/her notebook to store the cards earned. The cards are divided into two files.  Gadget Cards 1 and Gadget Cards 2 and there is also a template.