Still Struggling with Warm-Ups

10/24/2017

I'm starting my second real book on formative assessment. I finished Embedding Formative Assessment by Wiliam and Leahy. Now I'm starting The Formative 5 by Fennel, Kobett, and Wray. Something I've noticed about both books: neither one suggests using warm-ups as a research-backed strategy in the classroom.

I'm thinking about dropping them. Granted, I've only done them for like 3 months but I'm frustrated. My actual problem is that I can't fit everything into a lesson I want to fit in. I want to:
i) have a discussion about a warm-up
ii) check and go over questions on the previous night's practice work/homework
(quick stat: 80-90% of my students do the homework on any given assignment)
iii) teach an interesting lesson/investigation/experiment/whatever
iv) and to top it all off, have students complete an exit ticket

As it turns out, that's too much to pack into one day.

I talked this out with one of our district middle school math coaches (Dan Greenberg) yesterday. He's like a ninja-math-education-guru. It's awesome. After turning my questions back on themselves several times, he helped me figure out that warm-ups are the least productive of the options I want to pursue. Rather than trying to spiral in old ideas, or bring up Visual Patterns, or Which Ones Don't Belong, or whatever other good 'extra' things I want to do in a day, maybe I could use problems from the previous night's homework as a launch for group discussions. It would help students see the value in doing the homework. It would be a natural tie in of the previous day's work to what we would be looking at today. And it would help me better understand what my students do and don't understand about what I'm attempting to teach. Those other things are totally cool, I simply need to plan time for them rather than trying to shove them into an already full plan for a day.

So, I'm thinking about letting something good go. I spent days pulling together what I believe is an all-star cast of warm-ups to use in Algebra 1 this year. It's hard.

13 Comments

Benjamin link

10/24/2017 09:28:15 pm

Funny, its a somewhat different context but I had pretty similar ideas by the end of last year

http://mymathclub.blogspot.com/2017/06/2017-year-in-review.html?m=1

See the middle

Andrew Busch link

10/25/2017 05:54:48 pm

Benjamin,
Thanks for the comment. In reading your post, it seems you shifted the warm-up to provide a break from hard problems rather than as a start to the class. Is that right?

Benjamin

10/25/2017 09:31:20 pm

I'd say most times nowadays I'm mindful that I've planned a coherent 45-50 minutes and that I jump right in once we're past the intro and whiteboard student demos of a prev. take home problem.

That little bit of routine is enough for transition and the kids are freshest in the beginning so I want to front load the serious thinking.

I keep some of my old style warm up material in the back pocket for kids who's energy flag. So yes sometimes its a cool-down but on most days I don't need to use it.

I'm also lucky in the sense I don't have any overarching goals that need background practice. So I appreciate reading folks like Fawn Nguyen who heavily use visual patterns to build algebraic thinking. My preference is to instead thread things in as they come up naturally.

So for example I don't do number talks but I'll stop and work through a mental calculation if we're doing it anyway in the middle of a larger problem and it seems like a strategic moment. Last week, we working through a problem and the kids needed to work out the hypotenuse length of a right triangle. So I took the time walk some groups through the process who were struggling a bit.

I hope this helps

10/26/2017 03:11:50 pm

Benjamin,
Thank you! That was very helpful. My current thinking is very much in line with yours.

Amy Zimmer link

10/24/2017 10:34:23 pm

I realize we have 95 minute blocks, so maybe that is why I have some flexibility around warm ups. (I also need the transition time!) Do you have VNPS? Sometimes if I find a misunderstanding or want to reteach, instead of a formal warm-up, I just put up a question on the boards. Thanks for sharing your thinking!

10/25/2017 05:56:53 pm

Amy,
Thanks for taking the time to comment! 95 minute blocks provide their own challenges, that's for sure. I do have quite a bit of whiteboard space in the room. Plus windows. Do you have the kids up at the boards to do the warm-up?

Lisa Bejarano link

10/25/2017 06:41:28 am

Unstructured time and transitions are two key triggers for students with anxiety. With anxiety, working memory plummets, making it very difficult to recall or retain information. In those classes where t used to begin with me yelling at them to sit down and get out a pencil, followed by me being frustrated all class period, now students tell me what to do; they walk in, get out their warm up sheet and tell me to pick a good visual pattern today. Over time, this results in me having a better relationship with my students, which increases their perspective on math and their willingness to take risks in my class.

Routines can be a critical component in addressing student anxiety and creating a predictable and safe class environment. It may not be a big deal at your school, and if it isn't making a big impact in your classes, then it is not with the investment of time. In my classes, it really helps me to have a positive relationship with my students and to relive their (and my) anxiety with a smooth transition into class.

Here are some related articles:
http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/04/21/20-tips-to-help-de-escalate-interactions-with-anxious-or-defiant-students/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/magazine/why-are-more-american-teenagers-than-ever-suffering-from-severe-anxiety.html?smid=pl-share

10/25/2017 06:07:34 pm

LIsa,
Thanks for the comment! Consistent routine isn't part of my current warm-up process either. I'm attempting to pick warm-ups that connects with the content we're working on that day. Sometimes it's a slam dunk. Most of the time it's somewhere near the topic. And, I still have to ask students to get out their things and start working. I don't find it any less stressful on me. At all.

I read both the articles on anxiety. At the middle school level, anxiety isn't something we see a lot of. Most of our kids hit that their sophomore and junior years in high school. ...Maybe they do and I just don't notice. I'll start trying to look for it.

Susan Russo

10/25/2017 06:31:52 pm

I have 45 minutes to put all those things into play. My warmups are quick and easy and meant to get them in their seats and transitioned from the last class, so I do a warmup based on the date: "Today is 10/25. Write 10/25 as a decimal, a percent and an equivalent fraction."
Or "Today is 10/26. If I rotated the point (10,26) 180 degrees around the origin, what would its new coordinates be?" Or "Today is 10/27/2017. I have $2017 in the bank, and every 10 days I put $27 more into the account. How much money will I have in 30 days?" I can do anything with the numbers, and we discuss and move on. Easy! Do what you need to do!

10/26/2017 03:14:30 pm

Susan,
Thanks for the comment! Yeah, the types of warm-ups you describe are quick and pretty easy to implement. I think I'm trying to pull together too many complex ideas into one class period.

Pauline

4/17/2018 02:16:22 pm

I'm not a math teacher, but I fell upon your website and commend you and your followers on your dedication to the teaching of math. I have an autistic child, and solving problems for 3 years toward an actuarial math degree helped prepare me for life as an autism mom more than anything else (working in a restaurant kitchen also helped). Perseverance, looking at all aspects of a problem, being flexible, and getting used to--managing emotions--while facing problems that look unsolvable at the outset.

4/18/2018 10:52:42 am

Thanks for the comment Pauline! It's crazy how lessons learned in one seemingly very different area of life have lots of applications in other venues. For example, I spent quite a few years in the restaurant industry and I think it helped quite a bit with my classroom management skills.

Thanks again and keep up the good fight.

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Andrew Busch

Still Struggling with Warm-Ups

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