9th graders

I really like my 9th grade class.  They are full of energy and truly are nice students.  But man are they busy.  They just love to talk and get up out of their seat. They keep me on my toes to make a stellar lesson that keeps them engaged.  There is no 'work time' if it doesn't involve some sort of reason to stay engaged in the work.  A review lesson on a Thursday, a block day, where classes are 90 minutes, started out as a carousel.  In a carousel, students typically rotate in teams around the room solving problems.  The goal is to review tough problems as a team before a test and get a chance moving while doing so.  This lesson could easily take 55 minutes, equivalent to a regular day's schedule, but I knew keeping them engaged in this work for 55 minutes is a large stretch.  Additionally, they need to do these problems and I needed to harness the intelligence of the top students to support the low students in better understanding the concepts we were reviewing.  But there was no way just having them do the problems standing and rotating would be enough of a motivator to stay on task...until the magical popsicle sticks.

I don't know where I learned this strategy, but I'd be wise to never forget it's power.  Each team started out with a yellow, three point stick.  The instructions were simple.  Work together on the problems for 30 minutes.  When you finish a problem, check your answer and ask for another problem.  While the teams worked, I would swap out their sticks to move them up or down based on how well they were working as a team.  As a team their goal was to get up to a five point, blue stick. I must never forget the power of the sticks...

And, yes, this is a short post.  I created it weeks ago.  Life gets busy when you are passing on the classes you're teaching and starting a new role.  I'm going to miss teaching these 9th graders.  More on that later.