Mathematical Practices

I'm currently taking an online course about the Common Core mathematical practice standards and I came across a resource that I wanted to share. Inside Mathematics is a great site that will help you understand what the standards mean, specifically at your grade level, and give you ideas and examples (including videos) of how you can better include the standards into your classroom. I liked this site because it had examples of actual teachers using the suggested strategies which made it much more user friendly.

I always spend the first week of school getting to know my students and practicing low stress skills like vocabulary. I would like to use that week next year to teach them about the Common Core mathematical practice standards. I'm thinking of the week as an in-service training for my students. We are currently implementing Thinking Maps and AVID on my campus so I figured that I would spend my first week getting to know my students by teaching them about these focus topics for the year.

Well, it's back to class for me, so I'll send you more good things soon!

What can we learn about teaching from Candy Crush?

Time Magazine recently featured an article about the somewhat addictive nature of the popular online game Candy Crush. The article sparked a conversation about the game with my mother in-law and she wanted to try it out. As I was getting her started I realized that the game does not include much in the way of directions, and it got me to thinking about the instructional strategies the game uses to get players playing.

Within the game there are different worlds that each include different levels. Each world represents a new challenge and the levels introduce you to that challenge and then teach you to integrate it into your pre-existing Candy Crush skill set. On the first level with a new challenge the puzzle is fairly simple and only includes your new skill to be learned, once you master a basic understanding and pass the level, a new layer of complication is added.

To think of it in math terms; first you learn to add two single digit numbers, then you learn to add three single digit numbers, then you learn to add two multi-digit numbers, and so on until you can add any numbers you encounter. This would represent the first world of math. The second world would start with simple multiplication, then move on to advanced multiplication, and finally combine multiplication and addition. You would continue on in this manner until you learned all the math there is to learn.

I liked this because it struck me as a great way to frame learning. Learn something, then integrate it with the things you have already learned, and then learn another something. Does this sound familiar? It should, mastery learning isn't new.

What else is happening instructionally in this game?

There are not very many instructions in the game. You get one example and then your learning process is trial and error with immediate feedback. There are no tips about strategies within the game, you discover what strategies work to pass the level on your own. Why does that work? Because there is no penalty for making a mistake, you just start over again and try something different until you reach your goal.  Doesn't this sound like indirect instruction with real time assessment and differentiation?

What makes it even better?

If a level is just too darn hard for you to figure out, you can get boosters like; extra moves, special candy helpers, and more tries. Wait one hot minute, that sounds like scaffolding and implementing accommodations! 

I know a lot of my teacher friends are just as addicted as I am to this game, and if it feels like a guilty pleasure, I encourage you, reframe it as professional development because there is a lot of good teaching going on here.

Did I mention the most important part? It's fun!

So what do you think, can we make learning addictive?