How do I teach math online?

Author: Arlene Vinion Dubiel

Now that most schools have adopted remote online learning, here are three realities we need to face when it comes to teaching math online:

1 - Students have and can use the calculators right next to them, whether on their laptop or phone.

2 - Students are connected to the internet and are capable of looking up solutions to unknown problems.

3 - We cannot interact with our students in the same way that we could in-person.

Because of these realities, we need to modify how we teach math. 

Performing Calculations

Traditionally, math is taught as a skill. And certainly students need to know basic calculations and be able to engage in mental math. But once students engage in more complicated calculations,  using a calculation tool is appropriate, whether it is a calculator or a graphing program. 

If your learning objectives include knowing how to solve multi-step problems, it is possible to ask students to write out each step of their solution. This is how math is traditionally done. Certainly for early stage algebra, you want them to go through steps to isolate x and solve. And students need to know these steps - remember PEMDAS? That rule has tripped up many an adult on Facebook posts. 

However, forcing students to perform calculations and provide answers can be irrelevant as they are able to look up how to do calculations and use calculators. It is possible to ask students to write out the steps to the solution by hand and submit that. However, there is no way of knowing whether students understood the calculations or whether they simply copied the steps from an online site. 

We may perceive using these resources as cheating and there is some evidence to that concern. But rather than thinking of these realities as a negative, we can first congratulate our students in having the technology skills to competently look up solutions. We can also take this opportunity to revise our math teaching towards making math a concept rather than a skill. How do we do that? Read on...

“We can also take this opportunity to revise our math teaching towards making math a concept rather than a skill.”

Breakout groups - discussing math

Many in-person math classes start with a mini-lecture that shares the directions for the day, followed by small group work where students are working together to solve complex problems. Teachers will wander about the classroom checking in with groups, ensuring they are on task and redirecting if needed. This kind of instruction fits with the social learning theory, allowing students to learn from one another. 

Small group discussion is possible in online teaching with the use of breakout groups. All popular conferencing technology has the option to form breakout groups. You can give students a complex problem, put them into random or teacher-designed groups, and give them a period of time to work and discuss. The teacher can pop in and out of groups to make sure groups are on task and on track. An added benefit is that students can socialize with each other if they finish early - something that many students are missing with remote instruction.

Student groups may feel pressure to stay on task because they won’t know when the teacher will check in. But there are other ways to discover the effectiveness of small group work. 

• Have one group member take notes of the discussion or fill out questions as they are answered.

• Have each student in a group submit an exit ticket that summarizes the discussion. 

• Give students a one-question survey asking for their opinion of the effectiveness of the group work. If you have older students, they will be brutally honest.  

Bottom line, if you have not used breakout groups during a synchronous class for small group discussions, then try it! 

My Favorite No

What should students do when they are in breakout groups? This recent blog by Julie Mason from We Are Teachers has some good ideas for general and text-based courses like English and social studies. For the math classroom, we can certainly allow students to work together to solve problems, but to promote critical thinking skills, we need to use robust, complex prompts that students can discuss together. 

The Teaching Channel has an excellent video entitled “My Favorite No: Learning from Mistakes.” To summarize, the teacher looks at student work for a problem and identifies her ‘favorite’ incorrect solution. This is used as the prompt for student discussion requiring them to think through steps and identify where things went wrong. In the video, these “favorite no’s” come directly from the class. But in an online classroom they could be shared from the teacher using students’ past work. Presenting incorrect solutions and allowing students to work together in a breakout group to identify where things went wrong is one possible way to promote discussion. 

Well-phrased, open-ended questions are another type of prompt for breakout group discussions. The questions must be good ones and the solutions should not be Google-able. In the next blog, we will focus on features that make questions “good” ones for promoting student thinking. 

In the meantime, Almy Education will be supporting teachers throughout the school year and beyond with a new membership program. One benefit to membership is access to good questions, particularly for assessment purposes, that are not Google-able. Check it out!

If you haven’t yet tried breakout groups for small group discussions, then do it! Start gathering some incorrect solutions to complex problems and use them to prompt student discussions. 

Ready To Jumpstart Your Math Redesign Momentum?

Create effective, equitable & quantifiable change in your math program built on the good work you've already done