Problem of the Month: Make Student Thinking Visible #edleadership #maths

The end of November marked our first school-wide Problem of the Month (POM). We had four classes participate by displaying their work, as well as working on the problem for one month and five classes walked through to look at and discuss student thinking. 

The POM decided by our Leadership Team was The Shape of Things. I displayed the original problem on a poster so students could refer back to it.

It was my fist time participating as a principal with a school-wide POM. I had participated many times as a classroom teacher at my previous school, so to say I was excited for this new experience was an understatement! 

6th Graders made logos to show their thinking on rotational symmetry:

6th Graders also drew pictures to show rotational symmetry:

If you look closely, you can see the folds in the paper that are representative of the symmetry.

This is how TK represented their thinking with patterns:

TK also used Adobe Voice to record their thinking about shapes on iPad minis. The iPads were displayed on a table and students in other grades were able to watch the TK videos during the gallery walk. Here is a video of a student watching the TK video:

Students constructed an understanding of this task by actually making the kites. 

The strength of this part of the gallery walk was that students could see how the shape of the kite changed depending on the size of the sticks. 

Here is some 1st Grade work on display:

Here is the writing from one of the work samples: 

"My shape is a rhombus. I thought the sides were even." 

"My shape is a diamond. It has four vertices. The length is shorter."

"It has four sides, we think it is a diamond."

What a great way to explore student thinking! Some questions that came up during the gallery walk were: How did the partners decide to classify the shape as a diamond? Is there a way to prove their thinking about the sides being even? What is meant when the student uses the word "even?" 

The gallery walk was a great way for SMP 3: Construct Viable Arguments & Critique the Reasoning of Others to take place across grade levels. Here are some pictures from what students wrote on their post-its.

We still have work to do in the areas of students constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others. Responses could use definitions and an overall increase in using logic and reasoning to defend their thinking and/or the thinking of others. 

The student thinking and student conversations during the gallery walk also appear to have correspondence with SMP 7: Look for and make use of structure and SMP 8: Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. 

In conclusion, the Problem of the Month was a worthwhile activity that focused on student thinking and student conversations about math. I predict that conversations we have about student thinking from the Problem of the Month will inform classroom instruction.