Learning Blog 9 - Adaptive Classrooms

Hello readers,

It’s been a while! I’ve been quite busy at my practicum placement (under the tutelage of the wonderful Laura Wheeler) which as we all know takes up a huge chunk of your time. However, I am trying to keep up with the initiative to keep up with this website and as such I am writing this post to discuss some of the adaptive learning strategies that I have had the opportunity to use.

Towards this end, the first method I have learned and used is the 3 Act approach to present math problems. Using 3 Act Math allows for us as teachers to have our students discussing the question and map out their next steps towards building their own confidence and self-sufficiency. By asking students what they are given and what steps they might need to take towards solving the problem, teachers are able to quickly assess their students’ understandings and address any inconsistencies on the go. By creating a classroom discussion on what they might need to look up, measure, or calculate, every student is given the first few steps (which we all know is very difficult, especially for some students). This also reduces the incidences of “what do we do now?” as the next steps make themselves evident once a student works on a question. While this might be a little redundant for your students at the top of the class, it does absolute wonders for struggling students.

Here's an example of a typical "first slide" of a lesson, where students are encouraged to mention everything they can notice/know about the scenario. This is facilitated using Peardeck!

(To see what 3 Act Math is, check out Dan Meyer’s blog!)

Then, to facilitate the work period in the classroom, Vertical Non-Permanent Surfaces offer a great way for a teacher to actively assess student work so that we can understand student thinking better and address any misunderstandings. Plus, it gives students a great chance to expend some excess energy and find ways to show their learning to their classmates. In this, consolidation at the end of a lesson tends to be easier as the teacher is immediately able to reinforce what students know without going too far above the average understanding of the class. Additionally, students often take a lot of pride in their work, so its great to see how excited they become when you use their work as an example of a well-done question.

Here's an example of a group's work on proportional reasoning from one of the lessons from last week.

(I’d like to point out that Peter Liljedahl did a great job outlining what it is on his blog. Check it out!)

I have found through these two strategies that it has become much easier to manage class time, as I do not run the risk of cutting students off in the middle of an “Aha!” moment, nor do I use language that the students can’t understand (as they set the terms of engagement during the first act of the 3 Act Math). It’s certainly pushed me out of my comfort zone, but that’s always a good first step towards bettering one’s practice.

Until next time!

Image Credit: https://social.eyeforpharma.com/column/adaptability-using-change-competitive-advantage

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