Day-to-Day Stuff

As we deal with the big picture--the reform of mathematics education to meet the needs of the twenty-first century--we need the help and encouragement of our colleagues. Here is an assortment of tips from the experiences of many teachers who have been successfully implementing the IMP curriculum and enjoying it.

Handling Materials

The first IMP unit, Patterns, includes a list of the general supplies that are needed throughout the four-year program. Supplies that are needed only for a particular unit are listed in the overview for that unit.

You can ease management of materials by having a bucket, bowl, or bin for each group. This container should hold the daily necessities--calculators, overhead pens, blank transparencies, a couple of felt markers, rulers, protractors, scissors, and anything specific to the unit or lesson being taught, such as dice or pendulum-building supplies. You can keep the buckets on the tables or else store them in some common area where, say, the "heart card students" from each group will be responsible for picking them up at the beginning of class and returning them at the end.

If you are using materials that need to be locked up at the end of class, such as stopwatches, make sure you leave a few minutes at the end of class to count and collect them. You may want to put a student in charge of letting you know when there are five minutes left in class so you can collect materials and assign the homework. Occasional class discussions on the value of the technology and manipulatives may be necessary to deter theft or vandalism.

Calculator Management and Security

Having calculators available at all times creates a need for a management system. Your goal is to have some system that results in your class set of graphing calculators' sitting on the groups' tables as soon as they enter your classroom. (You will be amazed at how much today's technologically adept young people will learn about the calculator by "hacking around" before and after the bell rings!) You might want to use the same containers in which you keep the other daily materials. The important thing to remember is to make it as convenient as possible for the students to access the calculators; if students have to get up out of their seats and walk across the room to get one, they may opt not to!

The security of the calculators may or may not be an issue for your classroom. If you are concerned about the safety of your class set of calculators, you should develop a management system that ensures that all calculators are accounted for at the beginning and end of class, without impeding their accessibility. An integral part of any calculator management system must be ongoing communication with the students about what a privilege it is to have real-world mathematical tools and how important the calculators are to the IMP classroom.

One calculator management system involves labeling the calculators with the symbols by which you randomly group your students. For example, if you group your students with playing cards, you could tape a playing card on the back of each calculator, so that the two of diamonds sits at group two's table and uses the calculator in the center of the table with a two of diamonds playing card taped to the back. Taping a card or label on the back of the calculator so that it covers the battery case can also deter the unwanted removal of the batteries.

No matter what kind of system you develop for ensuring the safety of the calculators, make sure that your students are part of your system. They need to be included in the decision that the calculators are an invaluable tool that they cannot afford to lose.

Getting Good Attendance

Of course, no curriculum program or teaching strategy will solve the problem of absenteeism, but this issue is especially important in the IMP classroom, where student interaction plays such an important role in learning.

Fortunately, the emphasis on group collaboration also provides one potential solution to the problem. Hold class discussions to bring out the fact that group work functions best when all group members are present. Make each student feel that his or her presence is valued every day. Give group members the responsibility for getting each other to class.

Encourage students to call each other after being absent to see what was missed. Avoid answering the question "I wasn't here yesterday, what did I miss?" Simply respond, "Ask your group." Students should do any homework that was assigned while they were out. Making up class activities might require the student to come in before or after school with other absentees or to do the activity alone. Students can often pick up details from group members and from later activities.

Motivating Students to Do Homework and POWs

Like absence, this is an issue in many classrooms, but in IMP, the assignments are not just practice of what was done in class that day, and they often provide essential preparation for the following day. This makes it vital that students do their homework regularly.

There is no magic elixir that you can give your students to make them do their homework every night. You can try some of the following suggestions, though:

• Hold discussions on the role of homework in the IMP curriculum.
• Use your grading system to show the value you place on homework and POWs. Some students need external recognition for doing the work. If you never collect the work or acknowledge students for having done it, they may tend to slack off.
• If students do not complete an assignment, have them write a letter either to you or to their parents explaining why. This will not only tell you about legitimate excuses, such as a family emergency, but may help you adjust your teaching or give you something to use when you call or meet with the student's parents regarding the noncompletion of homework.
• Reward groups all of whose members turn in their homework.
• Have students read their fellow group members' work. This not only adds peer pressure to yours, but also gives students an opportunity to learn from each other.
• Have group members phone each other to remind them of assignments due or past due. You can use phone calls yourself to let students know about their good work.