We are often looking for ideas to have students work purposefully for short or longer bursts.
This post has a collection of seven sites that you and your students could work on independently, in pairs, small groups or as whole class. They can also be used to develop a culture of open sharing. You could do this face to face our online through the chat of ZOOM or Google Meet, on a Padlet, shared google doc or even with Flipgrid.
This whitepaper titled orchestrating mathematical discourse offers some useful tips. The big takeaway for me was to finish the discussion with a quick write – even if it is just one sentence, one wondering by every student, a proper sentence not keywords. This whitepaper is accompanied by an infographic with 100 questions you or your students can ask to promote discourse which i think should be in everyones’ kete.
The sites …
1.Would you rather ?
Would you rather began as a way for John Stevens to start his classes. It has evolved into a large collection of graded problems that ask students to choose an option and justify their choice using maths.
2.Visual Patterns.org
A collection of over 400 patterns to begin rich discussions which can lead to a generalisation for the pattern. Collated by Fawn Nguyen, On the sidebar of her blog you will find links to others sites.
3.Open Middle
A huge collection of problems sorted by topic and grade level. Open middle problems start and finish at the same point but offer multiple pathways through. Put together by Nanette Johnson and Robert Kaplinsky
4.Estimation 180
This site is curated by Andrew Stadel, a teacher and Mathematics Coach in California. He began by creating 180 different estimation challenges for his students so they could engage in rich mathematical conversations and learning.
5.Which one doesn’t belong ?
This site was inspired by the MTBOS, and contains many visuals which allow all students to take part. Use the ones on the site or create your own to develop rich discussions in class. or build them into Mathwalks around the school and community.
6.Dollar Street
The team at Gapminder visited 264 families in 50 countries and collected 30,000 photos showing how people live. Select income levels, countries and regions to compare homes from the same part of the world then look behind the data and look for possible reasons for the variation.
7.What’s going on in this graph? [New York Times]
This is a weekly feature in the New York Times, put together in collaboration with the American Stats Association Students are invited to analyze and interpret graphs first by noticing and wondering, and then by creating a catchy headline and considering what impact this data might have on them and their communities.
Photo Credit: Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash
