Experimenting with QR Codes

Cell phones. Students have them. We have them. I've reached a point where I'm tired of fighting them. They aren't going anywhere. Instead, I'm trying to come up with ways to integrate them into my lessons and classroom procedures. A good friend of mine who is a tech coach in another district mentioned to me that some teachers are using QR codes for tardies, tutoring, and retesting. So I figured, why not give it a shot? After all, iOS 11 has a built in QR code scanner for the camera that was included with the update. In theory, this should be pretty easy to implement.

I started out by making 3 different google forms. The nice thing about these forms is that I can export the results into a spreadsheet. In the case of the tardy form, this gives me lots of data to use when a kid tells me "I haven't been tardy!" Also, whenever a student fills out one of these forms, I get an email with all of the details. There's supposed to be a way to make it email the students parent when they're tardy as well, but I haven't figured that out yet.

Here are the links to the different forms (please don't fill them out, unless you just really need some tutoring from me :) )

Tardy Form

Tutoring Form

Retest Form

I then used the-qrcode-generator.com to generate QR codes using the URL for each form. I found that this site makes good, high quality QR codes and also allows you to download different sizes. I found the 4500 pixel size to fit best onto my posters. Here is what one of the posters looks like. The others are basically the same just with slightly different words.

My goal with all of this isn't necessarily to be ultra techy in my classroom, but to give students another avenue to take ownership of their learning with tutoring and retesting. The tardy form hopefully will reduce the clutter on my desk with excess passes from the office. I also like that it does my documentation for me in the form of a spreadsheet. I'll try to do a follow up post in a few months to see if this has worked out how I wanted it to!

How are you using phones to your advantage in your classroom? I'm hoping to find more ways to turn them into allies and not distractions. 

Opening up the Toolbox

I first discovered #mtbos, #tlap and #iteachmath four weeks ago after I finished reading Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess. In those four weeks, I've been exposed to so many amazing activities that, honestly, I feel overwhelmed. All of you are doing so many creative things! How do I even compare? So, in an attempt to be more creative, I've decided to start up this blog. I want to share not just the activities I do in my classroom, but some of the awesome moments that may have nothing to do with math at all.

Before I get into that, I feel like I should introduce myself a little bit. This year will be my 6th year teaching math. I am a proud 2012 graduate of Lee University in Cleveland, TN. I am so thankful that the professors I had in college went out of their way to nurture my passion for teaching. I wouldn't be the teacher I am today without them.

Throughout college, I swore that I would never teach middle school. I loved the higher levels of mathematics and had a passion for teaching high school students. So, naturally, I was hired in the middle of my student teaching as a long term sub for a 7th grade teacher going on maternity leave. I immediately fell in love with teaching middle school. I loved the excessive amounts of energy, the endless flume of sarcasm, and how moldable kids are at that age. I was especially lucky to teach with two other math teachers who weren't shy about letting me know that it's okay to have fun with the kids while you teach and that rapport building was one of the most important aspects of being a teacher.

Fast forward four years. My wife and I are having our first child, and an opportunity arises to move to China and teach at an international school that's being opened. Because my wife and I love adventure, we jumped at the opportunity. Living in China is not easy, and maybe I'll share more about that in a later post. I taught every high school math class - Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Algebra 2 ESL (to Chinese kids who spoke zero English), Geometry, and Precalculus and loved every second of it. Having five preps is no joke, but the small class sizes (at most 15, and some classes had no more than 5) and highly motivated students were a nice trade off. We moved back to the USA in June and teaching internationally is definitely something we will be looking into again.

Presently, I am teaching math at Kelloggsville High School in Grand Rapids, MI. I have five Algebra 1 classes with a mixture of ability levels, cultures, and socioeconomic backgrounds. So, with that being said, let me share one of my best #TLAP lessons that I got from Kagan Algebra 1. That book has proved to be a great purchase and I'm planning on using a few more of the activities in it throughout the year. I take no credit for creating the following demonstration, only for my superb acting abilities.

Solving equations is one of those skills that is a real challenge for some students. I love using demonstrations to illustrate math topics whenever possible and solving equations is no exception.

Materials you will need:

• Hammer
• Screwdriver
• 3 pieces of wood, one painted
• Nail
• Screw

The illustration goes something like this...

I open up class and say, "Hey guys, I need your help with building something for my wife. I'm not very good at construction so can anyone help me out?" The students are very eager to help out (a lot of them have parents in construction or just cherish the opportunity to be smarter than me at something). 

I tell them that I have this black board, and I need to attach another board to it. I pick up the screw (pre-drilling guide holes is very helpful) and the hammer and act like I'm about to hammer the screw. "NO NO NO! What are you doing?!? You have to use the screw driver!"

So I pick up the screwdriver and intentionally start turning it the wrong direction. In just about every class, I had students shout "Righty, tighty! Lefty, loosey!" After I attach the screw, I tell the class that I need to attach a second board to the natural colored piece of wood that I just screwed in. But this time, I have to use a nail. So I pick up the nail and start trying to hammer it in with the screwdriver. "ARE YOU CRAZY? YOU HAVE TO USE A HAMMER!" 

I then pick the hammer back up and try to hammer it in with the wrong end of the hammer. "YOU HAVE TO USE THE FLAT END!" By now, they're really getting frustrated with me. Most of them think I actually don't know what I'm doing. A few are catching on because they read the "I can solve equations in one variable" statement that is written on the whiteboard. After hammering the nail in the boards should look like this:

Now I pretend like I'm receiving a text from my wife and that she needs the boards put together a different way. I tell the class, "Dang guys, I have to take these apart now." 

So, I try to hammer the nail out of the board. Students will inevitably tell me, "You can't do it that way!" I ask them why not and try to get them to tell me that I have to use the "opposite" side of the hammer to take out the nail. I'll say something like, "Oh yeah, I saw this on HGTV!" which leads to a few laughs. I make a point of saying that I'm using the opposite side to "undo" that I hammered the nail in. I do the same thing with the other board and the screwdriver. I turn the screw to the right and when they correct me I make a point of having them say that I have to turn it in the "opposite" direction.  

After I have just the black board by itself, I ask the students, "What did that have to do with math?" Almost all of them are unable to make the connection. I tell them that the black board is the variable. Things are added on to the variable and to get rid of them we have to do the opposite of what was done. I walk them through a two step equation and make a point to hold up the hammer and the screwdriver each time I am "undoing" a part of the equation.

I love this demonstration for several reasons:

1. It takes an abstract topic and makes it tangible for the students. 
2. It reinforces inverse operations/opposite operations. 
3. It helps me reinforce that I have to remove the outside board before I can touch the board that is directly next to the "variable."

It's still early, but my solving equations unit is going much better than it has any other year. I think this activity is a huge reason why!