It's been a while...I know.....I've been busy. I'll blog about my trip to Washington DC in another post, but will take the time to mention this quickly- night one in DC, hotel bar, 10:15 DC time, 7:15 Cali time. I asked to get the Giants v. Dodgers game on the TV and was told this was not going to happen. So I ordered another cosmo. Welcome to the East Coast and it only got better from there!
I'm excited and happy to report on a wonderful power struggle that I engaged the class with during math this morning! Usually I try to avoid power struggles with 6th graders, but I figured since it was all 26 v. me, what better way to start a math lesson, than with a power struggle stare down? We started math with a Least Common Multiple Interactive Learning Problem. A guy washes dishes on every 2nd day of the week and he folds clothes on every third day of the week type of schedule. So the 6th grade had to figure out when both of these exciting activities would occur on the same day. I asked them to talk with their partner about how they would go about solving this problem. Fast forward 60 seconds. Me: "Who would like to share how they would solve this problem?" Student 1: "I got 5." Me: "Okay, well that's an answer. How did you get it?" Student 1: "I added 2 + 3 and got five." Me: "Okay, since we're at the answer, who else got five?" Student 2: "I got 6." Me: "Okay, how did you get six?" Student 2: "I multiplied 2 and 3." Me: "Well, which is the answer and how can we prove it works for this problem because yes, 2x3=6 and 2+3=5."
Start power struggle here: staring contest-- me and 26 ten, eleven and twelve year olds. Time elapses for what seems to be eternity. No one said anything, we were all just thinking. I wasn't timing, but when I had had enough time to think about the Raiders winning the Super Bowl this season and picturing Darren McFadden running in the game winning touchdown coast to coast in OT, I knew it was time to disengage the power struggle and move on.
Me: "Can anyone help me prove which answer is correct?" Nothing. Nothing and more nothing. Maybe this was a mini stare down. Regardless, I don't think I blinked the entire time. Me: "Would anyone object if I wrote a chart on the board listing the days of the week or something to the effect of Day 1, Day 2 etc.?" No objections. I wrote the chart, they wrote the chart, we checked off the 2nd and 3rd days and found that both activities would occur on the 6th day.
I guess the moral is I've got to figure out how to get students to demonstrate Standard for Mathematical Practice #3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
