I finally got around to using those nice white boards around my room today with the kids.
Yesterday they learned how to do synthetic division (to everyone's relief) so today when they came into class I asked for 4 people to put their work on the board. Once I had a volunteer I asked them to pick a friend. Those two went up together and worked out the problem with both synthetic and long division.
It actually worked out very nicely! Some kids were happy to volunteer and even more excited to pick a friend... the friends weren't always that thrilled, but they were working in pairs so there was support built in.
I originally thought about asking for 8 volunteers but knew it would be a stretch in some of my classes, so the "pick a friend" thing worked out great. It got kids up there that never would have offered.
In one class a student who wasn't here yesterday for synthetic volunteered (?) then chose another student who was a little shaky. We ended up recruiting a third student to jump in with them.
Yesterday they learned how to do synthetic division (to everyone's relief) so today when they came into class I asked for 4 people to put their work on the board. Once I had a volunteer I asked them to pick a friend. Those two went up together and worked out the problem with both synthetic and long division.
It actually worked out very nicely! Some kids were happy to volunteer and even more excited to pick a friend... the friends weren't always that thrilled, but they were working in pairs so there was support built in.
I originally thought about asking for 8 volunteers but knew it would be a stretch in some of my classes, so the "pick a friend" thing worked out great. It got kids up there that never would have offered.
In one class a student who wasn't here yesterday for synthetic volunteered (?) then chose another student who was a little shaky. We ended up recruiting a third student to jump in with them.
More division tonight, so I'll probably do something like it again tomorrow. And it gets me out of just projecting the answers. :) Maybe I'll try asking for one volunteer and letting them choose the next person. And letting that person choose the next. Etc.
We'll see.
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