The Algebra Carnival was a cross-campus project where 6th grades were planning to teach algebra concepts to lower elementary students. Teachers shared topics with students and the students in small groups had to design carnival-like activities to teach concepts to their younger peers. The main focus beyond math education was cooperation and collaboration, making math fun and peer to peer connection. The teachers also teamed up with the elementary school elementary teachers and had opportunities to each in each other's classroom.
What did you get from the Algebra Carnival?
What did you notice about the students that you were teaching?
Did you enjoy the Algebra Carnival? Is so, why? If not, why?
If you could do something differently, what would you do?
-Students were assigned a task – an algebraic topic "fill in the blank" or identify the problems to prepare
-Students in groups design a task that was age appropriate for lower elementary and create an activity to teach it.
-Recognize when students got "it" and when they needed to reteach or move on.
-turn your station into a carnival booth?
-students were expected to assess the learning and decide whether they got it.
-they taught the lesson 5 different times.
“What we took away from this project is deeper thinking about how this could be an enriching activity by tweaking it beyond just a fun activity. We recognized how to adjust our teaching to help challenge or reexplain key math principles. Another reflection is that we have to think about how to differentiate in unique ways for all students. We also learned how important it was to explain the relationships between numbers and concepts. We need to think more about how can we make this "stick" and have a deeper meaning and apply it toward other learning. We will think in the future how to make lessons more meaningful for the students. We liked how the project only took 2 days, one day of planning and one day teaching in the other school.” - Josh Sadek and Jolene Collier
