Next week.

Next week, I plan to pass out a list of projects/activities that students can choose from.  I think the list will have 6 choices and they will select 4 to complete and turn in by a certain date.  I've decided that they can create a book, prepare a podcast, prepare a white board presentation using showme, create a math lesson using google earth and make a short video presentation.  By choosing these general activities all my classes can do something. I need to set up the parameters for each activity so they are doing the higher level of Blooms technological taxonomy and it expands their knowledge.  It will also require they actually create a detailed product which I like.
This is a big step for my students and I hope it works.  I will have to schedule time for them to work on the projects but I think it will work.
On the other hand, I've been asking questions that have been opening up mathematical dialogue to develop their language skills.  I work with quite a few students who are classified ELL. Today, I asked can you take two concave shapes to make one convex shape.  This question produced a good conversation among my students as they talked about it.  Warmup questions are good for introducing material, reviewing or working on vocabulary.