Formative #Success

Today in Algebra 1, we were working on Adding and Subtracting Polynomials. I am unable to get students to do work at home, so we spent time in class practicing. I had a worksheet from Kuta, the free one of course, ready to go.

In my first hour class, we worked in Khan Academy and some students worked on the worksheet independently. By the end of the hour, I was working every problem with the students to keep them focused.

In second hour, I didn't give the students the option of Khan. I started class by handing out the worksheet and I let the students know they would probably want a separate sheet of paper to work the problems on. We worked the first problem together on the board. I then asked the students to get in groups of 2-3 students they could work with for the remainder of the hour. Once students were in groups, I handed each group a different color of post-it notes. I had on the board, the number of each problem to be worked on the worksheet. Students wrote just their answer on the post-it note and put it on the board.

Pros of this activity:
1.  I could see immediately if a group was getting the correct answers and I didn't have to check every paper! If a group got the answer wrong, I took them their post-it and looked at what they had written on their paper to see if it was a re-writing issue. If it was incorrect, I looked at whoever didn't write the post-it's paper and asked them to find the mistake.
2.  Students were talking about every process and double checking each others work.
3.  I could be anywhere in the room and knew exactly what problem each group was on.
4.  The students said, "THIS IS FUN!" They want to do it again!
5.  We completed an entire worksheet in class, without hesitation.
Last but not least,
6.  It became a race to see which group could get the most questions correct...the FASTEST.

What I will do next time:
1. Require different handwriting on each post-it. This will slow down the pace of the activity. Normally you don't want this as a teacher, but then you know that the smart kids aren't the only ones working the problems and writing down the answers.

This is what it looked like on the board:

Right now, I don't have any other things to improve this activity!

Feel free to contact me with questions! 

Shelby