Writing in Math

How do you integrate writing throughout the curriculum?

I try to have my scholars do some type of writing during each subject each day.

One way I do this in math is by requiring my students to complete a math journal each day. For the math journal students are required to copy the problem of the day off the board, solve the problem, and provide a written explanation explaining how they solved the problem and why they solved it that way. We have been studying fractions for the past three months. (About half of the fifth grade End of Grade test will be fractions so it was definitely necessary to spend so much time with it.)

For the last few weeks we have only focused on solving fraction word problems. After spending a lot of time looking at different types of word problems, I wanted my scholars to create their own story problems and then model how to solve it. Of course, the final step was to write an explanation.

My students love creating posters that they know will be displayed in the hall.

Here are a few of their work products.

I think they did a pretty good job with their posters.

I also love these type of activities because I can assess my students in more than one subject. With this activity, I was able to test their understanding of a math concept as well as assess where they are in writing. There are definitely some writing skills that we need to review.

How do integrate writing throughout the curriculum?

Data Wall

I can't believe that it is already the middle of February.  Where has the school year gone? 

I also can't believe that I haven't written a blog since November, but I'm finally back.  A lot has happened over the last few months in both my professional life as well as my personal life that has kept me extremely busy, but I am finally able to find some time to blog.  I have definitely missed it.

Well, now on to my post...

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I wanted to have a place in my classroom to show our classroom data.  All year this area has remained blank because I couldn't figure out exactly how to display it.
In December, my assistant principal completed my first evaluation and she told me that I needed to find a way to track data based on subgroups to see which groups are showing growth and which were not.  The easiest subgroups to begin tracking would be by gender; boys and girls.

Last school year, one of my colleagues, who is now the literacy facilitator for my school, had a data wall so I had a conversation with her.  She explained how she used her data wall and I decided to follow her lead.

This is how it works.  I created cards with each of my scholars names on them for each of our core subjects; reading, math, science, and social studies.  After they take a quiz or test, I pass out the cards and their graded assessment.  (We are currently working on fractions, so I have been recording their grades as a fraction and having them use a calculator to calculate their own percentage.) They record their percentage on the top of theory paper.  If they have a passing grade, 70 or higher, they place their name card face up.  If they have a failing grade, they place their card name down.

As a class we then calculate three percentages; whole class, girls, and boys. 
We then have a classroom discussion about the data.  After the third set of data collection, my students saw a trend that the girls always scored higher than the boys.  This led to a discussion about why this was a trend.  I love the fact that my students are analyzing their data. This is definitely requiring them to reflect on their work. I love it!!
Since I started using this data wall, I have noticed that my students have put more effort in their work, especially the boys, who desperately want to beat the girls, which hasn't happened yet.

I also like this idea because it will be a great addition to my data binder and it doesn't require me to do a whole lot of extra work.

I plan to continue to track data this way for the rest of the school year and look forward to using it starting at the beginning of the year next school year.

Here are some pictures of the current status of the data wall.  The boys and girls have different color cards so that it is easy for us to distinguish between them.

Here are the charts with my scholars' names. If the name is facing up, then the scholar passed the assessment. Girls are represented with either yellow or purple cards and boys have blue cards.

Here are the graphs of our data. Green=whole class, red=girls, blue=boys.