Have you ever felt chained to your desk? Students feel that way too! Mobile problem solving takes advantage of two strong factors enhancing student engagement: teamwork and mobility.
Teamwork is dream work. Students enjoy solving problems in groups and that increased enjoyment drives engagement. It also requires the important life skills of communicating effectively, both listening and articulating, and forces them to evaluate multiple potential paths to solve problems. Physical mobility, particularly for middle schoolers, breaks the boredom of sitting in one place, allows them to dissipate excess energy, and avoids making extended problem-solving time feel like drudgery.
Mobile problem-solving strategies leverage both of these factors. Strategies include setting up stations or "gallery walks" around the classroom and having small groups of students flow from station to station engaging new problems at each station. Even when working individually, students discuss strategies and help each other with ideas. Group problem-solving competitions move students to sections of the room standing and working on easels or whiteboards to solve the same slate of problems in the least time.
The requested items provide essential supplies for supporting this work. The lined and unlined easel pads will be used to post problems or problem sets around the room. They will also be used directly by students for the presentation of group solutions along with the pentel and expo markers. For individual work at stations and on gallery walks students will use the clipboards and pencils (and the pencil sharpener) to move freely from problem to problem and the red pens to correct their own work. Students will also work out group solutions directly on large whiteboards using the expo markers and erasers
About my class
Have you ever felt chained to your desk? Students feel that way too! Mobile problem solving takes advantage of two strong factors enhancing student engagement: teamwork and mobility.
Teamwork is dream work. Students enjoy solving problems in groups and that increased enjoyment drives engagement. It also requires the important life skills of communicating effectively, both listening and articulating, and forces them to evaluate multiple potential paths to solve problems. Physical mobility, particularly for middle schoolers, breaks the boredom of sitting in one place, allows them to dissipate excess energy, and avoids making extended problem-solving time feel like drudgery.
Mobile problem-solving strategies leverage both of these factors. Strategies include setting up stations or "gallery walks" around the classroom and having small groups of students flow from station to station engaging new problems at each station. Even when working individually, students discuss strategies and help each other with ideas. Group problem-solving competitions move students to sections of the room standing and working on easels or whiteboards to solve the same slate of problems in the least time.
The requested items provide essential supplies for supporting this work. The lined and unlined easel pads will be used to post problems or problem sets around the room. They will also be used directly by students for the presentation of group solutions along with the pentel and expo markers. For individual work at stations and on gallery walks students will use the clipboards and pencils (and the pencil sharpener) to move freely from problem to problem and the red pens to correct their own work. Students will also work out group solutions directly on large whiteboards using the expo markers and erasers