As we have completed our first week back to school, I feel the need to write something else, but I’m not quite sure what to discuss. I thought this entry could be just a summary of what we are doing right now.

The geometry teachers met to discuss a bunch of problems that we were planning to do very soon. Many of them included more difficult proof problems. Interestingly, we found that for some of them, we had all done them differently. I love when this happens, because it shows how differently we, as adults, all think. It helps to keep us in perspective about the students’ work. It’s so easy from our perspective, to know where a problem is going and what its point it. Can you imagine how the kids feel? It must be totally disconcerting to think you are going in one direction and then come to class and realizing your thought process was off track. It can be very discouraging.

That’s why attitude plays such a big part in this type of curriculum. A few of my students are definitely getting the hang of coming to class and being open to being wrong. They do not see it as a bad thing anymore, but as their learning experience enhanced. Yesterday in my class, we had a little time at the end of the period and I had them all start on one problem that was very abstract. The first part of this problem gave them four general points A(0,0), Q(a,b) and S (c,d) (where a>c and b<d). These three points were supposed to be three vertices of a parallelogram. They were asked to find the coordinates of R, the vertex not shown. I had them think alone for a little while and then I walked around the table and asked what they got. It was an interesting discussion and I thought it worked well, because now everyone had that part of the problem done and correct and could go back to their homework later and feel that they had accomplished at least a part of it. As the bell rang, one student said, “I really liked that” and she meant that it helped her feel better about her homework when we started discussing the problems in class. I think I might consider being much more deliberate about this in the future.

Another thing that worked really well this week was doing a Think/Pair/Share exercise. This is where I give them a problem and first have them think alone for 3-5 minutes. Pair up with another student (randomly by some silly rule that I come up with) and then the pairs share with the whole class. I believe I had everyone talking in the class at least once during this exercise, which is generally my rule of thumb for a good discussion.

I am encouraged by the positive feedback that I have received from not only my department colleagues, but colleagues in other deisciplines as well. I was approached by a teacher in the science department who said that they were considering teaching Biology with this method in the future and could we meet to discuss this. The Algebra I teacher is considering moving in a direction where there is much more problem-based learning going on. I feel proud that others are finding value in what we are doing and that we had the courage and deliberateness to create such a good curriculum that it has impressed others with its value.

Of course, no curriculum is perfect and my fellow geometry teachers and I are already looking to the summer to plan our work on our revisions of this curriculum…but that’s another entry!