Gap Week

This academic year has been busy. Thanks to a colleague and time spent over the summer, we've worked through five units of math. That means 5 sets of essential questions, 5 sets of enduring understandings, 5 projects, 5 rubrics, 5 opportunities to hit the sweet spot of content and project design.

Each unit was far from a home run, but I was particularly proud of the way kids started to evidence their math in each of the projects. It was work and it took encouragement, but it was there.

Then, a convergence of events created the conditions that it made it impossible to begin Unit 6. The quarter ended, EduCon happened and Unit 5 ended before Unit 6 was ready to go. I was once the kind of teacher who would stay up all night and solve that, but I'm too old to pull all nighters and they don't generate good results, either.

Instead, I planned a Gap Week. We had just covered operations with fractions and multiplication of mixed numbers was particularly weak. Likewise, we needed to review solving for an unknown, as well as some measurement and geometric concepts that will show up on the statewide test this spring.

Volume seemed to satisfy all of these needs. And it gave us an opportunity to build boxes (see above). We also practiced multiplying mixed numbers, a challenge for many (in large part because mixed numbers should just stay improper fractions, according to my mathematical son, Charlie). We looked at what happens to the volume when you increase the length and width, but leave the height alone. We scaled and made boxes larger and smaller. Some of us even thought about what might happen if we had to find the volume of a triangular prism.

The inquiry and hands on approach to this unit also led to impressive results from a traditional school perspective. Even though I teach in a project based school, I still give quizzes in math. There are two reasons for this - first, the kids love them (go figure) because of the instant gratification of knowing that they get something (or don't) and secondly, it gives me a barometer on who is getting what and where we need to bolster skills for the project. The Volume Quiz showed that not only were the students enjoying themselves and asking great questions, they were also learning some math. To date, it is has been the highest scoring quiz of the year in each of the classes. And not because it was terribly easy.

Now that I am deeply immersed in Unit 6 on data analysis, I look fondly up our volume gap week. And so do the students. In as much as we want kids to engage deeply for sustained periods of time with math and our essential questions, it was nice to have a week of fast paced, hands on learning that connected so many of the skills we have practiced earlier in the year.

Where might you insert a gap week in your curriculum? How might you connect skills and concepts to give kids a way to explore and create?