I love the idea of engaged learning. I have never been a person that could learn very much by just sitting and listening. I am a visual learner. I know that there is time that lecturing is needed but I have learned lately that the most important part when you do this is to have discussions and take time to make sure that people understand.
This week I had the best opportunity to see good engaged learning at work. I attended Mrs. Whipple's 5th grade class as they were having a day to make sure that they understood how to do the box method for 2 digit multiplication. The lesson started with 2 problems that she put on the overhead for them to figure out. She called this Hot Math. The questions had multiple answers so they could discuss how they figured out their answers. They did these problems with their partner on white boards. They had a great discussion in the class with white boards as they practiced a few problems of the 2 digit multiplication and the teacher answered any questions they had. Once, they did their review she told them to take their marker, eraser, and white board with them and they were going to do an activity outside. She then told the students that she was separating them into two teams (early birds and later gators) and they were going to go out and each take a turn doing a problem on the 4 square court and see which team could do it the fastest without talking. She let them know that this was a new idea and may not work exactly as she imagined. There were a couple issues but it was a great idea. The students had to work together without speaking. There were enough students on a team that one person could take charge and help get people where they should be. Each student either had to be part of the problem itself, or an answer in a box, or 5 students were the answers being added together to get the final answer. I love thinking out of the box and this teacher definitely does this.
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