Tellagami for Vocabulary...I'm Still Unsure

This picture caught my eye on Pinterest a while back and I am finally getting around to checking it out.  This comes from Matt Coaty who writes the blog Educational Aspirations.  Matt teachers gifted and talented students at the elementary level.

When I first saw it, I thought what a cool idea for getting students to show multiple representations of the same vocabulary word.  After closer inspection, I realized that the students were actually showing how to solve the problem.  I thought this is brilliant and totally motivating for middle school kiddos.

Since I had never heard of Tellagami,  I downloaded the free version from the app store on iTunes to my phone.  I played with it a little bit and it is pretty simple and students would figure it out quickly.  It's nice from the standpoint that there are a limited number of choices that the students can pick, so they can't spend hours picking the outfits and hairstyles and then never get to the math.  There is the option to type in the text and let a computer voice say it or you can record your own voice.

I have finally made my first gami about slope.  To start, I made up some cards about slope.  I opened the app and selected the background, then took a picture of my cards with the little person on the screen.  Then I recorded a little something about slope. It was really that simple.

To hear it play, click here

But, there are some downsides to this app that I found as I played:
1) There are in-app purchases (boo!).

2) There is a limited trial time to access everything.  After that you are left with one type of clothing which you can change the color of the shirt/pant.  That doesn't bother me.  Losing the ability to type what the character should say and then pick a voice is a bummer for me.  I don't want to pay for it.

3) There is the cost for the educational version of the app.  The cost is $4.99/subscription.  The up-side is that there are no in-app purchases.  It's just a bit too much to ask my school to pay at this time.

4) Because of the in-app purchases, I can't have students use their phones to produce a Tellagami.

5) Students are limited in the free version to 30 seconds.  I believe it is reasonable for a vocabulary word, but might not work to explain a problem.

6) There just isn't an easy way to collect them and put them into a file for later that I can figure out.  The email depended on the email entered into the device.  We can't use Facebook or Twitter for good reason from our school devices.  The only other option to share is via text.  That is how I was able to link my screen shot to the gami that was made.  So, timing is vital if students create these.  We need to share them during the same class period.  Or, one day is for planning and another day is for recording/sharing.  

I know that my students would love it.  But I am not sure after playing with it.  So I started thinking of alternatives.  Since my students enjoy making videos, we could do it without the Tellagami app and just record a video and save it to Google drive.  We would loose the computer animated person though and I know that would be novel and intriging.  They could make their own figure and insert it into the video.  Ultimately, the idea that Matt wrote about on his blog can be adapted.

I am putting this out there, hoping, that maybe there is someone wiser than I, who can tell me other options to work around the downsides of the app.  Does anyone use Tellagami (or something similar) in their classroom?  What do you do with it?  Love to hear about it! 

Mathematical Conversations

Mathematical conversations are a technique that I learned over a year ago, but never put it into practice.  This year I am going to give it a go and I am hoping that it helps some students solidify vocabulary and procedures.

The technique is pretty simple.  The teacher writes a script that the students will read in partners or triads.  The students then put on their best acting abilities and read the script with each other.  The script should be read through at least twice and students should change roles.  The script does not have to be long, but should be focusing on key vocabulary, procedures, or concepts that students aren't understanding.

After students are comfortable with the way a mathematical conversation should be in the class, they can try their hand at writing their own for the class to read or acted out by the authors.  It is a great way to get writing happening in the math classroom!  Student written or teacher written scripts could make a possible activity for a station.  Several scripts as stations could be a review activity as well.

My first attempt at trying to write a mathematical conversation is below this paragraph.  I picked the topic of subtracting integers because it is reviewed in the text and I know that this was hard for the kiddos last year.  As Algebra students,
they have to be comfortable with the subtracting integers.  My conversation is longer than what it should be.  In reality, it should be less than a page.  I just wanted to try and bring in some conceptual understanding too.  I am also debating if I should go with the traditional rule of "add the opposite" or stick with the "keep, change, change" rule that I went with last year.  For consistency, "keep, change, change" really is the better choice.  If the conversation would be useful to you, you are welcome to it.

Reflection on Vocabulary

Tonight, I was trying to narrow down the 28 vocabulary words in the first section of my algebra text to a more manageable 13 or 14.  I was actually having a hard time because I know that all of these words will creep up again on my students on a test produced by the text or on a homework problem.  When I looked at the 28, I was having a hard time deciding which words should be cut.

Therefore, the mess above started.  I thought if I could draw out the connections and determine the words that would be connected together the most often, I could narrow it from there.  My mess of solid lines and dashed lines started to draw a very clear picture for me.  It confirmed something that my gut had been telling me the last couple of years.  The words that I think are the most important and vital to students future math classes doesn't agree with the publisher's opinion all the time.

After creating the mess of lines,  I took out my highlighters (because every teacher has more than one) and highlighted the words in yellow that had the most connections from/to them.  The orange are words I think my students really should know for the future and are part of a standard.  I realized that there are words, like closure, that I would stress to the students because it popped up in homework and on the tests produced by the publisher.  One reason the students always struggled was due to lack of connection with the other lessons in the first section.  Closure only connects to counterexample and there should be a line up to sets.  Other vocabulary can be connected to other terms in other contexts.

Looking at this mess of lines, I am realizing that this might actually be a really good activity to do with students.  I could start a flip chart on my interactive white board and we could revisit it after every lesson and add the new vocabulary and draw the connections on the board.  Students could also keep an ongoing chart in their INBs.  I am thinking through my keyboard right now, but I am starting to see some possibility here.

Does anyone have a good way of narrowing vocabulary?  Love to hear your ideas!

Definition Doctor

The first lessons of the text book are so heavily packed with vocabulary that I found myself going back to my bookshelf and looking for ways to practice, and not just memorize, the new vocabulary.  I found a strategy called "Definition Doctor" in a book entitled Style and Strategies for Teaching Middle School Mathematics by Edward J. Thomas and John R. Brunsting.

"Definition Doctor" piggybacks off of a technique called Vocabulary Knowledge Rating, or VKR.  In VKR, students rate their knowledge of the vocabulary on a scale of 1-4.  My sample is at the right and yes, there are a lot of vocabulary words in lesson one!  There are 28 vocabulary words in lessons 1 through 10.  I need to whittle the list down to an essential 13 or 14.  

For the "Definition Doctor" technique, students use the words that they rated in their VKR.  One student volunteers to be the "Definition Doctor" and another student chooses a vocabulary word from the list and asks the "Definition Doctor" to define and explain why the word is important to the lesson or unit of study.  If the "Definition Doctor" is stuck, they may ask another classmate for a "second opinion" to get some help.  After the definition and significance has been given, the student who chose the vocabulary word becomes the "Definition Doctor".  Practice continues like his until all the words have been reviewed.

When I read this techniques, I loved that it asked students to make connections and put a value on the vocabulary.  The word really is important to understanding the material!  I also liked that the activity has flexibility to be a large group, small group, or pairs activity. 

I wanted to make "Definition Doctor" feel more like a game, so my students would review all of the words.  I can totally see them reviewing 2 or 3 words and then chatting for awhile until I came to see what they were doing or listen to their group.  By putting the vocabulary onto cards, the technique had more of a game feel.  If it was a game, then there is a start and a finish.  The cards would need to be gone through before they could stop.  It's not perfect, but better than just choosing off of a list.  The cards also let me focus the practice to specific words because I can take out words I don't want my students to focus on.

The template that I used to make the cards is here.  As always, if it will be useful to you, you are welcome to it!

Practicing Expressions and Their Vocabulary

Opps!  Should have had the "s" in coefficients in parentheses. 

The next lesson in the text is about the different parts of an expression and is very vocabulary heavy.  My challenge has been how to practice the vocabulary and do something more than just memorize the definitions. 

With some thought, I came up with two different ideas.  One of them is in the picture at the left.  I had these numbers left over from when I was "The Mathematical Wonder" superhero for the day last school year.  They got me thinking that I could have the kids make expressions and define the different parts of the expression to a partner.  It wasn't a bad idea, but I didn't feel like I was stretching them.  Then, brilliance struck and I thought, "what if their expression had to meet specific criteria?".  That would challenge them to create an expression and understand the vocabulary words! 

I created some simple task cards which you can download below.  If the dollar store is out of the numbers, I am going to use the plastic bottle tops that I've collected and my trusty sharpie to make my own set of numbers. 



I wanted something else to practice with that was active.  So I thought about the Kagan cooperative group technique called "Mix-'n'-Match".  I have had good success with this in the past.  If you're not familiar, students each have a card and have to go and tell someone the answer to what is on the card (or explain something to another student).  So student A explains to student B, then Student B explains to student A what was on their card.  The two students then swap cards and go talk to someone new.  This goes on for 5 minutes or so.  I like it because there is a lot of practice happening in a short time frame and it gets them up and moving.

After I made the cards, I thought that they would work well for an inside-outside circle activity.  For this activity, students make two circles with one circle inside of the other.  Students face each other so that one student on the outside circle is facing a student from the inside circle.  They talk about the cards, swap them, and then either the inside or outside circle moves while the other stands still.  There are lots of variations on this activity, so do what works for you.  Below are the cards that I made.