Getting students used to a new school year is difficult. Getting them used to discovery-based and discussion-based learning is even more difficult. So how would things go in the middle of a pandemic, after the kids had been out of the classroom for six month?
Surprisingly well.
I chose to use the opportunity to refocus the class in a way that I believe is better, and have for a long time. If we're honest about it, the vast majority of the skills learned in high school mathematics are going to be useless to most of the students after they graduate, or at the very least after they take their last math class in college. We claim that the point of math classes is to teach things like critical thinking and problem solving, but then we end up doing all of the critical thinking and problem solving for the kids, asking them to simply repeat the process we show them. This means that we're the ones doing the actual work, and the kids are just doing what they're told, and the process does not improve the students' ability to think critically or problem solve.
So, the refocus was to emphasize critical thinking, problem solving, perseverance, and other honest-to-goodness life skills, using the math as the means to this end. Learning the math skills is still there, but the purpose is the process of learning the material rather than on the material itself.
To drive the point home, I chose a "theme of the week" that looks more like life coaching than math class. Things like "Being Intentional", "Mindset and Skill Set", and "Adjust and Adapt" were emphasized at the beginning of each week, along with having the students set their goals using what I refer to as Setting their G.P.S. :
G = goal; What is your goal for the week?
P = purpose; What is the real purpose of the goal? What is the "why?" sitting underneath it?
S = skill; What skill will you need to have or need to cultivate to accomplish the goal?
All of this set the stage for the kids to do the heavy lifting of learning the material by working through the slides with support (but very little if any direct instruction) from me. From the beginning, I pushed the fact that if I showed them what to do and how to solve the exercises, it would interfere with the critical thinking and problem solving that we were actually working on.
And they bought in. Well, most of them. There are always a few holdouts, until they realize I'm serious about being less helpful when it comes to showing them exactly what to do but being completely helpful when it comes to supporting them and guiding them in their discovery.
Unit 1 was tough, as always. Unit 2 was relatively smooth. By unit 3, we were rolling, and it lasted the rest of the year. And this year has followed suit. Same emphasis, and so far, same results.
