What Are The Best Assignments For Distance Learning?

After last semester, I needed to learn more about creating assignments for a distance class.  I tried but didn't have time to really learn about teaching distance classes because like most teacher, we were told on Friday that come Monday, everything would be online.

I needed to know more about creating assignments that would be effective for my students while making them so students could be more self-directed.  So I've assembled several suggestions to improve online assignments.

Before you actually sit down to write the assignment or lessons, it is important to know what you want your students to get out of it.  What skills are you hoping students can do at the end of the assignment.  When students know what they are learning via this assignment, they are more likely to do the assignment because they do not see it as "busy work".  Another thing to think about is the skill levels of your students.  If the assignment is too far above a student's ability, they are likely to get frustrated and shut down whereas one that is too far below their ability will lead to a lack of motivation and boredom.  The last thing to think about is which topics have students struggled with in the past so you can work on making those areas clearer through the use of videos, etc.

Our first instinct is to create the same type of assignment we would in class including all the directions.  In class, we are able to give the directions in small increments but when we do it online we tend to just write them all out in paragraph form.  It is best to use numbered lists or bullets with short simple steps anyone can follow.  Many times, parents will be trying to help their student and the listed format makes it easier for them too.  Furthermore, students and parents can check off each step as it's completed.

It is suggested one create a list of assignments, videos, class time, etc for the whole week in table form with a due date and a place to check each completed item.  This helps students keep track of what they are doing and helps them keep up with pacing.. In addition, for math, add some choice so they can choose say 5 out of 8 problems.  That way, they feel as if they can skip a problem if they don't know how to do it.  Also, other than class time, do not set a specific time of the day something should get done so that the family can work it in around what they are doing.

It is also suggested the teacher be consistent when it comes to posting material for the class.  It should be done at the same time  and the format should also be the same for each assignment so students are not scrambling to find everything.  A teacher might post daily with the daily work or weekly for one week worth of work, it depends on the age and school requirements. 

Make sure the layout of the assignment is the same every time.  Put the learning objectives at the top or bottom of every assignment and create a numbered list that has the same things in the same place. For instance, you might have a warm-up activity first every time, a video second with a fill in blank for notes, two practice problems where students fill in missing steps, and the problems last.  It is also nice to put in a time for "office hours" so students can log in and visit with zoom or google hang outs or via phone. 

For the assignments, it is also important to include multiple forms of representation such as making sure the videos have audio and closed captioning so students who have trouble listening can read as the person is speaking.  If the assignment includes a reading, make sure there are images, videos, and audio to go with it.  

If it is possible, allow students the opportunity to show you they can do the material via alternative means.  Perhaps you can have them explain how they did a certain problem via video so they don't have to write the explanation down.  Perhaps they want to create some sort of animation to show how the problem is solved.  

So keep all these things in mind as you create the assignments for the class.  On Monday, I'll be looking at some online things that might make it easier for students to work at home in math. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

7 Things To Think About If You Go Distance.

Some teachers will be back in the classroom while others will be teaching via some form of distance.  I know that many school districts have not yet decided which way to go, making it hard to plan ahead.  I'm still looking at ways to make the year more interesting should the semester start using online.  

I've looked at general information on distance teaching which can be easily used in the math classroom.  These tips should help one prepare lessons for distance learning.  When you have to teach via distance, the students do not have the chance to communicate with each other so they can't work together in the same manner. 

1.  Simplify instruction because everyone is not longer in the same room.  Students are unable to work with each other or ask for help as needed.  Now distance teaching has had to incorporate activities that require a much higher degree of self direction.  There should only be one or two activities associated with a class period and the activities need to have clear directions. Furthermore, there should only be one or two resources associated with each lesson and the resources should be easily accessible to a student when they want to use it.  Resources can include pdf's or slides, or even a video.

This would be a perfect time to use chunking.  Chunking is when the material is broken up into units or chunks which are much easier to learn and uses short term memory more efficiently.  In addition, chunking helps students "see" the connections between all the "steps". 

2. Make sure you have a home base set up for your digital classroom.  Rather than a classroom, use a digital place such as Google classroom or Canvas, to check up on the most up-to-date information.  All the information should be in one place so students don't have to jump around various programs and possibly miss important information.

In addition, it is important to set up clear instructions with checkpoints so the teacher can see what is happening and to help students continue progressing through the course.  Since distance requires more self direction, many high school students still have difficulty with that so they need the checkpoints to help them.

3.  Planning classes is going to take longer because you have to plan everything in detail.  If students are not engaged, you cannot suddenly change direction when doing a distance class.  It is better to plan longer assignments that are student driven so you have time to plan future units. Try to make the units so they are more student directed with check points so students keep on pace and arrange sections so students can discuss it with parents or other students via the phone.  In addition, set up choice boards or perhaps a choice of problems so they have a certain amount of engagement and ownership.  

4.  The thing that gets lost in distance education is the personal interaction.  The part where you say hello in the hallway, or ask a student about their last basketball game, or how their weekend was.  It is important to create points in the lesson for personalized interactions which can be done by e-mail, video messages, messages through Google, or phone calls but whatever method you choose, stick to it.  Cultivating those personal moments is going to take more energy than when in the classroom but it is worth it. 

5.  When the class first begins, take time to set your expectations.  Let the students know about the different types of activities they'll have, the amount of work you expect them to complete and deadlines along with checkpoints, how they will be assessed, and behavior guidelines including what will happen if cyber bullying occurs.

6. Make sure every resource you need for the lesson is on line and working.  Check the links to make sure they work as there is nothing worse than expecting students to watch a video and the link is broken.  It's not like being in a building where you can pop out and make extra copies or make new copies for a change to the lesson.  

7.  If you decide to make your own videos to go with your lessons, you need to keep it relatively short, in the four to five minute range.  Don't worry about making it look like a Hollywood movie, just make sure it covers the points that need to be covered.  Be sure to practice the lesson before you record it so it does not have a lot of pauses or Umsss.  In addition, if you aren't sure about managing the explanation while being recorded, there are several prompter apps available to use so you don't forget anything.

If you are going to be starting the year doing distance learning, these are some things you can think about as you prepare the class.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  I'll be exploring this a bit more on Friday.  Have a great weekend.

  

Preparing For A Possible Distance Fall Semester.

After a summer of not going anywhere, I'm still waiting to hear what my school district will be doing for the fall semester.  I just heard that the Anchorage School District will be distance for the first couple months because of the sudden spike of cases in the city.  They just hit over 150 cases for the first time.  In fact, this is the first time the in state numbers have passed 100.  Hopefully, I'll hear from my district sometime this week what they'll be doing.

I've been researching teaching virtually since last spring my district settled on packets that did not have to be returned.  I need to know more about how to do it and want to take some time to plan, just in case.  I'm sure there are others out there in the same boat.

The learning scientists have six recommendations they make for teaching virtually so students are able to learn better. This group researches topics associated with learning and make recommendations.  They have taken their six strategies recommended for use in the classroom and made adjustments for the virtual classroom.

1.  Spacing.  Spacing is where learning opportunities are spread out across a period of time.  In distance learning, students need to be a bit more self-driven and it is suggested they spread their study time over five days rather than trying to do it all in one day. Normally, in class, students have the opportunity to work on problems with the teacher there but with distance, the student has to take more responsibility to work independently.  This means they need to schedule enough time to complete the assignment using videos, reading the material, take quizzes, etc so they are not rushed and allow the brain enough time to absorb it all.  Since students often wait to the last minute to complete assignments, teachers can help by spreading the topics across several weeks so there is a built in spacing.

2. Interleaving.  Interleaving is mixing up the types of problems students work on instead of having them do all the same type of problems.  Most textbooks are set up so that the problems in the section correspond to the examples but it is more important to mix up the different types of problems so no two in a row are done exactly the same way.  In addition, one should add previous problems into the mix to continue spacing while interleaving current material at the same time.  Furthermore, in distance classes, it is important to pose questions which require students to integrate knowledge throughout the topics.

3. Retrieval.  Retrieval is where students are asked to bring memory forth from their memories.  The most obvious ways to do this is when students take quizzes or tests but there are other ways to do this.  Ask students to write down what they remember on a particular topic, or play a game like Kahoot, or other game.  When asking students to write down what they remember about a specific topic, let them know they are not expected to remember everything.  They can fill in missing information later, it is just a way of working to connect things in their mind.

When teaching by distance, it is good to include a lot of low point or no point quizzes but write the questions so they have to use what they have in their memory to answer it rather than just copy the answers.  The questions might require students to apply the concept to a specific situation or identify the parts of the answer.  Another suggestion is to create a large data base of questions that can be pulled so not everyone answers the same questions.

4. Concrete examples are much easier for students to follow than abstract ones.  Concrete examples are the best but there must be multiple concrete examples provided and the examples should contain different details so students connect with the concept.  Unfortunately students tend to remember the surface details but not the deeper details so by using a variety of situations in the examples, students do better remember the concept being illustrated.  It is easy to incorporate multiple examples in a video if that is the way your school is going this fall.

5. Use elaboration.  Elaboration has you asking students "How" and "Why".  When students work on answering questions dealing with how and why in reference to the concept, it helps them understand and learn better.  One can also ask students how this topic or concept relates to their own lives or ask them how two topics or concepts are similar and different.

6. Dual coding which is about combining words with drawings/pictures, or diagrams to make the material easier to understand.  In addition, students learn best when using multiple representations and students need time to digest both the words and the illustrations.  Furthermore, students should be taught to explain how the different representations show the same idea or concept.  When using this in a video, use words while presenting the illustration and take a pause to give students the chance to explain it to themselves.

Keep these things in mind when you return to classes this fall either in person or via distance.  I'll be discussing this topic in more detail later in the week.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

Warm-up

If an average grasshopper covers 30 inches in one jump and the 30 inches is 15 times the length of it's body, how big is the grasshopper?

Warmup

If a grasshopper can travel 30 inches every hop, how many hops will it take the grasshopper to go one mile?

14 More Weird Math Facts

 Today I'm back to share more interesting math facts with you. Some of these facts show that math is all around us, while others show something interesting that would make the basis of a "What do you notice?" question.

1.  The first fact involves cicadas which are a type of insect we often hear on a hot summer night.  The cicada's life cycle is based on prime numbers.  For the first 13 or 17 years of their lives, they spend underground before emerging to mate.

2.  Usually when we talk about geometric shapes in real life, we discuss triangles, squares, or rectangles but if you look at a baseball playing field, the baseball diamond is actually a perfect rhombus.

3.  If you have a bunch of two dimensional shapes such as a square, rectangle, pentagon, circle, etc, all with the same area, and you calculate the perimeter, the circle will have the smallest one.

4.  Now if you take the same shapes mentioned in number three with all the same perimeter and calculate the area, the circle will have the largest area.

5.  Imaginary numbers are used in the real world to describe electrical currants among other things such as signal processing and radar.

6. If you begin at the center of the sunflower and work your way to the outer edge in a spiral pattern, you'll notice the petals are arranged in the Fibonacci sequence of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8.....

7.  If you take time to really look at Roman Numerals, you will notice there is no symbol to represent 0 by itself.  You'll find 10, 50, or 100 but not 0.

8.  The written word for the number 40 is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order.  Look at it - forty.

9. If you look at the spelled out version of odd number such as one, three, five, etc, every single word has the letter "e" in it.

10.  The written words for 11 + 2 is an anagram for the same written words of 12 +1.  So the letters in "eleven plus two" can be rewritten into "twelves plus one".

11.  We've all heard the saying "Back in a jiffy!".  Well jiffy is actually defined as 1/100 of a second.

12.  If you add up the two numbers on opposite sides on a dice,  the sum always equals seven. This is because the 1 and 6,  2 and 5,  3 and 4 are opposite.

13.  It should take no more than 20 moves to solve a Rubick's cube regardless of the starting position of the cube.  There are over 43 quintillion possible starting positions on a Rubick's cube.

14. If the clock you have hung on the wall uses Roman numerals, it most likely uses IIII instead of IV for four.

Just a few facts to use as warm ups this fall.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

Math Also Found Pluto and Exoplanets.

 This past Monday, I spoke about how two different astronomers used math to find Neptune but that wasn't the only astronomical body calculations found.  The story picks up in 1846, just after Neptune's existence was confirmed.  There were still some issues in regard to Uranus's orbit that could only be explained by the existence of another astronomical body out there somewhere.

In 1894, Percival Lowell built his own observatory - the Lowell Observatory - in Flagstaff Arizona.  He began searching the skies for the mysterious Planet X but didn't find it in his lifetime.  In 1929, the observatory hired Clyde Tombaugh who joined the search.  He used a method where photographs were taken and he made comparisons between the photos to see which items had moved.  This lead to finding Pluto.

Now what is not generally discussed is the female mathematician who worked with Percival Lowell. She provided the mathematical calculations confirming the existence of Pluto and both Lowell and Tombaugh relied on the math to help find Pluto.  She noticed that the orbits of both Uranus and Neptune still were not where they should have been so performed the calculations to prove there existed another planet that influenced the orbits of both planets. She was the one who sent Lowell to look in a specific part of the sky and Tombaugh continued relying on her calculations as he searched for the body. She was fired from Lowell Observatory in 1922 when she got married.

If you follow astronomy at all, you know that in 2006, Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet and at the same time, the number of recognized exoplanets or planets outside the solar system has increased.  In the last few years over 4000 exoplanets have been discovered by astronomers.  The process is based on many times astronomers notice something that indicates another astronomical body so they hit the math to calculate what it is and where it is.

An example of this is when Belgium astronomers noticed a dimming of the light out of a dwarf star which usually indicates a planet crossing it, so they began calculations to confirm there was a planet associated with the dwarf star. Consequently, we now have the TRAPPIST - 1 star system.  The astronomers used the transit method in which the light of the sun dims a bit as the planet crosses in front of it. They watch for this dip to be repeated on a regular basis.

Another technique to find exoplanets is to use radial velocity also known as Doppler wobble.  Astronomers look for small wobbles in a planets orbit. These wobbles are caused by gravitational pull of other bodies.   The third less common method is to use direct imaging which relies on the light from the planet but the problem with this method is that dimmer planets are not as easily found.  The final method is using microlensing in which there are two planets being observed. One passes behind the other and the planet in front acts as a lens to bend the light of the planet so it increases and decreases smoothly.

One of the first things they calculate is how far the new exoplanet is from planet Earth and the second thing is to calculate the mass of the planet.  They find the mass by using the brightness of the star and it's distance to get a number and they are able to determine the mass based.  Once mass and distance are calculate, scientists can then figure out the planet's radius, orbital radius, and density using standard equations.

If you want to give students the opportunity to use the type of math some of these scientists have used, there are some great activities available.  This one available from JPL has applying Kepler's third law to help determine the movement of known planets and then some exoplanets.  They provide a lesson plan with step by step instructions and the answers so you can spend more time with students.

This NASA page has a list of exoplanet activities for grades K to 12. It includes several transit activities and a couple more using Kepler's third law and even provides one activity using the same technique used to find Jupiters moon.

These activities connect math with astronomy to see how formulas are used to find mysterious planets and moons.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.