Integrating Norms Into the Classroom

Last year I discovered these norms from Sarah at MathEqualsLove.blogspot.com that I did a mediocre job of teaching and reinforcing throughout the school year.  I appreciate that they reinforce what makes a good mathematician and what makes a good math class.  This year I made an early commitment to properly introduce each one and let them be a part of my language in class.  Week two I chose the following norms to reinforce and thread throughout the week.

Confusion is part of learning.
This one was a welcome surprise to reinforce.  The name tents each day during week one gave space for students to reflect on the activities we did each day.  Naturally, students in each class made a remark saying something to the effect of: "the class was confusing today, but our team got it".   Jackpot!  I started Monday discussing this observation and introducing the three norms for week 2.  Be ok with confusion, I told them. It means there's something to learn.

No one is done until everyone is done.
On most Wednesdays and Thursdays we only see three of the six classes, making our classes 86 minutes long instead of the regular 57 minutes.  I often utilize this time in smaller chunks to keep the kids on task and give us all a breather during what feels like a longer school day.  This week I took the time to introduce a structure called "Find Someone Who".  We played structure in a fun way at first.  The instructions were to get a bingo, 5 in a row, by finding classmates who fit the characteristics.  Once you had a bingo, go back to your seat.  What was wonderful, was that the norm came out naturally in this activity.  One student finished quite quickly and took a seat.  Other students kept coming up to him to ask him a question and he participated.  After time was up, I debriefed with the students highlighting how no one is done until everyone is done.  Even though you might finish, you still contribute to your classmates.  We followed up the fun icebreaker by doing the same structure with solving equations which led us into the final norm for the week.

Helping is not the same as giving answers.

For the equation round of Find Someone Who, students got a card with an equation on it. (I made 12 different equations that resulted in one of six solutions).

Step 1: students had to find someone who had the same card as them and solve that equation together.  They then became the expert of the card they had and could lend support to their classmates.

Step 2: Find all six answers on their paper and solve the equation that matched the answers they were missing.  Get help from the person with the card if you are stuck.


The key here was to discuss how counterproductive it would be to just give the full solution.  Helping is not the same as giving answers. There were a few kids who were copying, but I just redirected them and reminded them that they would never cheat on a test so they shouldn't do this on a day of practice either. It was so fun to walk around and hear them explaining to their classmates a difficult step.  I effectively had each student become another teacher in the room for their problem.

While I'm proud of how the week turned out, let's not pretend it was all sunshine and roses.  I literally forgot to plan a lesson after having to be out Tuesday and no prep Wednesday and I had to scramble during my lunch period.  I had to be honest with kids that Wednesday that I just wasn't myself and forgive me for mediocre work. Not surprisingly, they rolled with the punches, so to speak, and we survived the afternoon.