Smart Phones in School

Image Source: Johan Larsson

I am torn between engaging students with worthwhile apps and preventing students from becoming distracted by the toys at hand. On the one hand there are many apps that are not only appropriate for use in a mathematics classroom but genuinely create an opportunity to advance student learning.  Not only do these provide additional resources for learning but could be used in place of other expensive equipment. Why should we purchase graphing calculators for hundreds of dollars when most students can download a free graphing program on their smart phones. 

However, it is just a simple click away to turn a student's attention from honest classroom work to checking texts or playing games.  I spent the last week observing in a seventh grade math classroom where students were allowed to use the calculators on their phones or itouches when working problems.  Despite a firm warning that any use of the phones for other purposes would result in their not being allowed this privilege, I saw a number of students flipping between programs when the teacher wasn't within their immediate zone.

I want to encourage students to use the technology they have to make sense of what is happening in the classroom, however, I don't want the technology to become such a distraction that students are able to tune out during class.  Hmmm?

ICTM Conference

This past Friday I attended the ICTM (Iowa Council of Teachers of Mathematics) Conference in West Des Moines, IA.  Overall the experience was great and I got a bunch of ideas for implementing the Iowa Core Standards in my future classroom.

The one main idea that I am interested in exploring was presented by Elizabeth Tapper.  She recommended using "Notebook Checks" to replace correcting piles of homework.  I have one professor who uses a similar system, and in that class the he only grades a few randomly selected problems out of the assigned homework problems.  My one concern is that I never know if he happened to grade two problems that I got correct while in reality I misunderstood the greater bulk of the material.  While I'd like to think this is not the case, I really have no way to know if I am completely off base on a number of the topics.

So I attended this session with a bias against a system where only some of the assigned problems are graded.  However, I came away from this session ready to think more deeply about how this could work in my classroom.  Elizabeth described to us the features of her system that overcome these concerns:

1)  All student work, including notes and homework assignments are kept together in one spiral notebook.
2) Students are given the "correct" answers to all assigned homework problems, and then given the opportunity to ask questions or get clarification on missed problems.
3) Students then have the chance to correct or rework incorrect problems.
4) On the back of quiz papers students copy from their notebooks solutions to randomly selected homework problems.  (Here is the key: they are only allowed to COPY work that is in their notebook)

Here is how this system addresses my one concern, students are given the opportunity to review their work and pinpoint exactly where they have misunderstood. As a bonus this system encourages students to rework incorrect problems so that they are responsible for their own understanding.

I may decide to tweak this system as I consider how this could work for me as I plan how to organize my future classroom but I think I can certainly find a way to implement Notebook Checks in my classroom.