Japanese Research Lesson

On March 21st I was invited to visit a junior high school in Wakoshi of Saitama-ken. A "research lesson" was being taught by two different teachers. So we saw the same lesson twice. Once with eighth grade students and then with seventh grade students.

Previous Lesson
The lesson prior to this lesson the students were given this picture. It is a cube. Points P and Q are the midpoints of the sides.

The students were asked "What kind of quadrilateral is PQGF?" The students used nets to think it through. I wasn't present for this lesson so I don't know the details of this lesson. It turns out that PQGF is a rectangle.

This Lesson
Then in this class, the students were given this picture. Points P and Q are the midpoints of the sides.

The question that was asked to the students is "What kind of quadrilateral is DQFP?" The students were given time individually to think about it, and then the teacher asked students to raise their hand based on what shape they thought it was. The common answers were square and rhombus, but there were students who thought it was a rectangle, parallelogram. I was impressed that no student was concerned of the social implications of their initial guess. I think that if I asked this question to my students, many students would vote how the few "smart" students vote. I was impressed that students felt safe enough to voice their thoughts, even if they were the only ones.

After students made their initial guess, the students got in groups of 3 in their han. (Their han is a grouping of about 6 students. These groups are set at the beginning of the year and are the same throughout the entire year). Since students had different opinions, they were to discuss their reasoning and as a group decide on what shape they thought it was and why. The students were also given the following net:

As they were reasoning, they were invited to use that net. Some students drew the shape they thought the lid was and then cut it out to see if it matched. For example the groups that thought it was a square constructed a square on the net and then cut it out. Or I saw one group who thought it was a rhombus, construct a rhombus of two equilateral triangles and see if it matched. Neither of these worked. I saw another group cut out the net as shown, then place the lid face down on another piece of paper and trace the top.

At the end of the lesson the teacher didn't announce what the shape is. I was really impressed by this. If I was teaching this lesson I would want to wrap it up and say what the answer is. The truth is, if the teacher did give the answer at the end a two things would happen:

• The students would stop thinking about the problem. If the teacher doesn't announce it, there will be students to continue thinking about the problem on their own and may come up with an answer or other connections.
• The next task that the teacher presented, the students would be significantly less motivated to attempt it because they would know that if they wait until the end of the lesson, the teacher will tell them the answer anyway.

My Reflection
I loved this task! It was very simple to understand, but very complex to solve. I loved that it was open on how to answer the question.

I love research lessons! I wish that I could find more lessons like this to use in my class, with my students.

Brainstorming about Next Year

Whenever I hit March, I begin to think about next year. I think there are a few reasons for this. One of them is the weather warms up my students get a little restless; I begin to have more discipline problems, which results in students not doing as well in class and I look for ways to improve them. So this year I have held firm to classroom rules and will not give in to students pushing boundaries in the Spring.

Another, and more important reason why the Spring evokes thoughts of change, is I have been able to see an analyze what a semester in my current model is like, and I want to change a few things. This blog post is for me more than anyone else. I just wanted to get out some of my thoughts about next year.

Definite Changes for Next Year
Assess Less, Learn More. I want to do away with quizzes. Currently we have two quizzes and a test each chapter. I am again embarrassed to say that we spend the same amount of time assessing as we do teaching. I want to do away with quizzes so I spend five or six days teaching and one day assessing.

This would also allow me more time to analyze the test for gaps in understanding and make plans on how to address those misunderstandings in the future (not when I hand back the test. Very few students are motivated to learn a concept that they missed on the test when I hand it back, so I need to come back to it later.)

Deeper than the Textbook. I would like to move past the textbook at some questions that push for deeper understanding. I don't know it will look more like the explore, flip, apply model, or contextualized problems, or integrated pure mathematics questions like Japanese teachers use.

Stricter Homework Policy. I will probably be flipped next year, like this year. I think I was too lenient on what happens if students don't come to class without having watched the video. So I will probably make it a policy that you can't get full credit if it isn't done by the next day.

Require More from the Summary. I have my students write a summary of the video when they are done. I want to do more with this. Maybe I will have them write it at the end of class, after they have had time to apply the ideas.

Possible Changes for Next Year
Throwing away the calendar. This year I have handed out a calendar on the first day of each quarter explaining exactly what will be done on each day of that quarter and we stick to that calendar. I don't know if I will do that next year. I want to be able to adjust to individual needs and spend an extra day on a topic if necessary.

Genius Hour. This year I have freed up about 11 academic days for a Genius Hour project at the end of the year. I have no idea how that is going to turn out. Maybe it will be the most amazing thing I have ever done and I will keep it, but I am almost planning on it failing and so I probably won't do it next year. This is a horrible way to go into something new, it is just that I usually fail the first time I do something. The question is will I come out of it determined to do it differently next year or determined to never do that again. We'll see.