Moving & Learning in the Middle School

Active learning is something I fully embraced 3 years ago.  At times it seems like chaos, but in my experience, the more the kids are moving around, the more aware they are of what they’re doing.  So many times if I give an assignment that they do at their desk then I have a class full of students zoning out, tapping pencils, and not putting forth any effort.  When they’re walking around the room the percentage of students spacing out and not working drastically decreases.  

There are tons of activities you can do that will get students up and moving.  I’ve tried so many different options and as with most things some will work better for you than others.  It’s important to find the activities that work best for you.  The ones I use most often are scavenger hunts, math libs, and stations.  For a scavenger hunt I place papers around the room with problems for the students to solve.  Sometimes they have QR codes with answers, but more often than not, each problem will share a page with an answer to a different problem.  This allows the student to work the problem and then search the room for the answer they just came up with.  If their answer is not on another page in the room then they know they did something wrong and they try again.  If the find their answer then they work the new problem and continue until they have completed a giant loop through all of the questions.  This activity is one of my favorites because it allows students to either work in small groups or individually and they are checking their own work as they go.  Math Libs are just a nerdier, more mathematical take on Mad Libs.  Students answer multiple choice questions that have parts of a paragraph attached to the different answers.  When we’re finished with all questions, I read the correct paragraph and they can easily check which problems they missed based on the accuracy of their paragraph.  I position the questions around the room so students are moving in a giant circle answering questions.  This activity tends to be a student favorite because the paragraphs are ridiculous and they like to guess what’s coming next as they’re answering questions.  These are just a couple of example activities that work best for me in my math classroom.  I find tons of ideas for new things to try by reading through blogs and, of course, Pinterest, where all the good things are.

Sarah Wilson

This is Sarah's 7th year teaching and my 4th year at SMS.  I got my B.S. in mathematics from Dallas Baptist University.