Problem of the day…with a twist!
I am a former math teacher. Don’t run away (yet)…this won’t be a math lesson (or maybe it will…math is EVERYWHERE!). There was a time in my career where I started the class with an “opener,” which was typically the “Problem of the Day.” The problem may have had a connection to the lesson for that day, or it may have been some sort of spiral review. Regardless, a big part of this problem was to provide my learners with a time to start thinking about math.
I tend to reflect, a lot, about how I can continue to improve upon my teaching. One day I had a realization. My learners asked me A LOT of questions, not necessarily related to the “problem of the day” that I had projected. It was more like, “Mrs. Q, why do parents have to go in to the parking lot this way to drop the kids off if teachers have to get in, too?” Another example, “Mrs. Q, do you think I can raise my grade before the end of the quarter?” Or my favorite, “Why do they serve this for lunch if it’s supposed to be “healthy”?” I began to realize that I was spending a good portion of the beginning of class answering these questions. Could my middle school kids have been derailing me to keep the focus off the problem of the day, quite possibly. But they were also genuinely curious about these questions. And these were middle schoolers – I could only imagine how many questions an elementary school teacher must get asked a day with those big imaginations in their classrooms!
I started to move away from giving kids the answers to their questions. I mean, I never simply give an answer to a math problem; they need to persevere and problem solve and analyze their work when it is incorrect in order to understand. So…why would I answer their questions? It’s not meant to be rude at all, but how am I teaching them anything if I keep providing the answers to them?
Out of this reflection, I brought a box into my classroom with a cut out at the top and labeled it, “Problems of our Life.” I started asking kids to write their questions down, the ones they would ask me verbally on a daily basis, and place them in the box. I had paper that was color coded based on when the answer was needed (red – needed ASAP; yellow – needed within a week; purple – needed within the month; blue – doesn’t matter but would like to know). Those “Problems of our Life,” pending they were appropriate, became the starters of our class period. My kids were thinking critically, problem solving, and collaborating. They were learning about real life issues, and were discussing solutions together. They were realizing that in some situations, there were multiple ways to solve these problems. We were even talking about problems that we thought we solved but did not go as planned, and shared our whys. In some cases, we were able to use their problems towards an entire math lesson/unit which allowed them to make immediate connections to their learning. The best part is these problems were coming straight from my students, which made them even more engaged with learning from the start.
Other than learning math, my kids were learning how to handle situations and challenges that happen in life. Some questions that they collaborated on were about how to get to McDonald’s from school to meet their friends, how to finish homework and study when they had to go to play practice, how to make a necklace out of sea shells for a gift, etc. These were all questions that my students generated because they were curious and needed to know; and they wanted to work with others to find solutions.
Don’t be afraid to navigate away from your “content focus.” Your kids are still learning something that they will be able to take and apply somewhere else. =)