Tag / Multiplication and Division

by Beyond Traditional Math

I Am Obsessed With Visuals

I can’t stop using visuals in elementary math. They are on every anchor chat, every lesson plan, every assignment if possible. It started last year when I noticed students were having trouble understanding place value until I made a visual 100 chart.

When students have a visual to connect mathematics to, it’s like something magical starts to happen. Students who excel want to make their own visuals, students who struggle start to understand…it’s truly remarkable.

You might be wondering more about what I mean by visuals. I’m going to introduce you to Berkeley Everett at Math Visuals. He is a K-5 Math Specialist out in California that has been working on making math come to life with visual animation. It’s truly remarkable the amount of hours he has put into this task, and it’s all FREE.

Need to learn to count in kindergarten? There’s a visual for that.

Need to see different types of division? There’s a visual for that.

Need to understand the concept behind compensation in addition? There’s a visual for that.

Need to work on different ways to represent two digit numbers using place value concepts? Theres a visual for that, too.

Go to this site and you’ll be lost for hours. Better yet, it will inspire you to create your own visuals on your math anchor charts. It will inspire your students to connect those very abstract math concepts to something that they can hold in their brain.

Thank you Berkeley, you’ve made me a better math teacher, and helped a whole lot of students at our school.

Advertisement
by Beyond Traditional Math

Build It = Deep Conceptual Understanding of Multiplication

Being a math interventionist is one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had. It’s like a constant cycle of diagnose…teach…teach…teach…light bulb on…light bulb off…diagnose…teach…teach…teach…

I’ve been working with a group of fourth graders that were just struggling BIG TIME with multiplication. They weren’t able to see how a fact like 3×7 could help them solve 6×7 by just doubling. The numbers were too abstract, and they had nothing to connect it to.

Of course as I dug deeper I found that they simply had zero understanding of what 3×7 really means.  So as usual, I tried to find a way to connect it to real life, my favorite thing ever. I was trying to think of a way to help them remember the difference between rows and columns.  And then it occurred to me as I was waiting in line at the theater, no one wants to wait in line to sit in the first COLUMN for a popular movie. We all want the best seats in the house, so we wait to sit in the first ROW.

Enter the Movie Theater Multiplication Project.  I went home over the weekend, turned off all distractions and poured days and days into authoring this project. I needed to really think for myself what 3×7 represented.  I was not taught this way and I know that it doesn’t come easily to me.  I also had to think of a way that would be meaningful and that would STICK, since that seems to be the biggest challenge facing students in intervention. The last thing that I really needed to think about was the Concrete-Representational-Abstract instructional approach. Kids LOVE to build. The second they walk into my math lab, their hands are all over my cubes, blocks, counters, etc.  Starting with building means that they can usually connect a pictorial representation to it, and then connect that to numbers.

So I made a movie theater or two or three as I wrote the project. I made theaters that were 3 rows of 4 seats, making 12 seats total (3 x 4=12). I made tickets placing them in the correct row and seat number. And finally I made some mega theater designs so they could learn to use known facts to solve harder facts.  There is a fourth stage to the project also that involves some open ended challenges to calculate profits and revenue. Say hello to my little friends:

Multiplication-conceptual-understanding

Seemed like it might actually work!

So I brought the idea to school. I got out some tools and some little tiny bears and THAT got their attention.  Tiny bears! Seriously, that is all it took?!

The first three days of the project were brutal.  They were making columns instead of rows, they were making rows of 20 instead of 20 seats total.  With probing questions they started to see what was happening.  And THEN, light bulbs turned on…and for several days now the light bulbs have stayed on! Is it sticking?! I hope so, and we’ll find out when they get to the mega theaters and can break down more difficult multiplication. Wish me luck!

Multiplication-Conceptual-Understanding1.jpg

Multiplication-Conceptual-Understanding2.JPG

If you want to try this out, in the preview you will find three parts of the four stages of the project that are free.  You could totally continue the project by giving them your own specifications!

 

 

by Beyond Traditional Math

Data Doesn’t Have To Be Overwhelming!

The idea of collecting data has really been getting a bad rap lately. Have you heard these comments (or comments like these) in your building?

  • “We are drowning in data!”
  • “All we do is test our kids.”
  • “I feel like our kids are just numbers, like we are ignoring that they are PEOPLE.”
  • “We collect all this data, then we have no time to analyze it and use it.”
  • “I don’t have time to enter in all this data.”

I think we’ve probably all heard some version of this at some time or another. Some of these comments might actually be true in some districts. I’ve heard horror stories about schools that are doing so much test prep, that they really aren’t finding time to intervene and help their students when they struggle. I feel lucky to work in a district that believes firmly that our data should drive instruction, and if it doesn’t, we shouldn’t collect it.

I had an amazing moment about 5 minutes ago. (Yes, I was working on a Saturday night, not totally uncommon around here!) I was looking at some problem solving we did for report card purposes/parent teacher conferences (THAT explains why I’m working on a Saturday night), and I noticed something amazing.

I use multiplication and division word problems in my classroom about 3 days out of the week. I am a firm believer that students need simple problems to try out before diving into difficult and complex ones. I use Practice Problems for Multiplication and Division because according to the Common Core these students must have multiplication and division mastered by the end of grade 3.  There are also 9 word problem types that are broken down in the common core for students to master in grade 3 so why not teach these things together?

Instead of just diving in and giving everyone all the problems in the entire booklet, I first assess each student on each problem type by giving them the first one. Then, I set up a spreadsheet to look at my results.  I noticed that my class was really struggling with the Type 2 problem, only 8 students got this problem correct. (I score this according to a standards based grading scale, it could also be scored pass/fail.)

My chart:

photo (23)

So we practiced this problem type. We tried this type of problem five times, each time giving students a chance to come up to the chalkboard to explain their thinking.  Awesome strategies were shared, and students asked many questions to see how they solved it.

The student on the left has pretty good knowledge of multiplication, while the student on the right is just beginning. Both strategies are successful.

photo (24)

Now we fast forward to tonight.  For parent teacher conferences, I decided I wanted a sample problem solving exemplar to show to parents (it also made sense to have the latest info for report cards!). Naturally I choose this same problem type, since we’ve worked so hard on it. I just finished scoring them, and noticed that 21 out of 25 students got it right this time! I started yelling to my husband (who probably thought I was crazy) that I was so proud and excited for my students.

It really DOES work.  Using data to target instruction is a much more focused way of going about planning instruction.  I haven’t wasted any time on problems that students already knew, and now I know exactly who needs a little intervention work with me! The best part is, this entire process was so simple.  (Instructions are included in the Practice Problems for Multiplication and Division resource. You could also set this up with your own problem types!)

I can’t wait to share this awesome news with my class. I am hoping celebrating our success will motivate them to continue to work hard.