First, thank you to the crew at kidCourses.com for my warm welcome last week!  I’m super excited to be a regular contributor, and hope to share some ideas to spice up your math class, especially at the secondary level.  After teaching 8th graders for the past 8 years, I know how difficult of a task that can be!  For my first post, I wanted to share an activity that can be used for any topic, at any level, called “Find Someone Who”.

Students are given a problem set (for me, usually 10-16 problems) and tasked with walking around the room and trading papers with other students in order to complete all the problems.  They simply trade papers, complete a problem on the paper, then sign their name on the “Name” line.  They always trade back (getting their own paper) and look for a new person to trade with.  Here is a snapshot of my Slope & Graphing Find Someone Who.  For this particular activity, students practice finding slope from a graph, finding slope given ordered pairs (the slope formula), and graphing linear equations in both slope-intercept and standard form. I have done this activity with everything from two-step equations, to functions, factoring, quadratic equations, you name it!  It’s so adaptable to just about everything.

Directions to create the activity:  In Microsoft Word, simply make a table with however many columns and rows you need.  Type a question in each box, and put the “Name: _________________” line at the bottom so students can sign their name.  And you’re done! So easy and it keeps the kids engaged for 30-45 minutes!

Some activity suggestions:

• Make sure all students are using a pencil.  They may need to make adjustments on their paper later and will need to erase.
• Make sure students put their name on the paper right away so they don’t get confused when trading papers.
• Have students read over all the questions first before getting up, so they are aware of what’s on the paper.
• Encourage students to pick a new problem each time they trade papers.
• It’s okay not to know how to do a problem!  I always tell my students to never avoid a problem because it looks too hard.  Be honest and simply approach someone int he classroom and say “I’m not sure how to do #__, can you do this one with me?”  Then they are both doing the same problem and coaching each other through it.
• Do the activity with your students!  I always get a blank version for me and walk around and trade papers with the kids.  It allows me to target specific students, get them to teach me, and it helps keep them on task!  I always sign my name as “Algebra Rules” or “Math Rocks.”  They roll their eyes, but it makes me smile! 🙂

Ideas for closure:  Once it seems like the majority of students have finished, I have them sit down and finish any questions left blank on their own, then share and compare with their partners.  They must identify any answers that don’t match, discuss, and come to consensus on what they think the answer should be.  This process takes about 5-10 minutes.  After they have shared in their groups, we share and review the answers as a group.

I frequently use this as a review activity and it has been so beneficial.  Try it out!  Send me an email at allthingsalgebra@gmail.com and let me know how it worked out 🙂

Gina Wilson
All Things Algebra