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Practice is a key component for developing procedural fluency and for revealing misconceptions. Here are F I V E of my favorite low-to-no-prep activities to help students practice and review skills in the Algebra classroom. Templates, freebies and suggestions included!
A Spin on Traditional Review: Screencast Reviews
We all have and use those review sheets, and there's nothing wrong with them, but let's modernize how we use them. Instead of reviewing the entire sheet as a class, differentiate by allowing students to work through the sheet at their own pace and check their work using screencasts. This will allow students who need to view the full, in-depth solution to do so and it frees the teacher up to facilitate and answer more questions throughout the room. It also provides students a more low-stakes opportunity to ask questions.
If you want to scaffold this a little further you can embed screencasts in a Google Form and incorporate metacognitive questions to get students to think about their learning. See an example of how I do this in the GIF to the right.
Interested in trying this? Here's the T E M P L A T E I use to create all of my review sheet forms! It has my end-of-review metacognitive questions already included!
Scavenger Hunts
Turn any worksheet into a kinesthetic, self-checking, collaborative activity by making it into a scavenger hunt! Each problem from the worksheet gets posted around the room on a poster. Beneath the problem is a solution to a different problem. Students begin with one poster and solve the problem then look for the corresponding solution on a different poster. Once they find it, they complete the problem on the new poster and the process repeats.
The poster to the left is from a scavenger hunt in my factoring unit. The algebra teachers at my school teach the slide & divide method for factoring when a is not 1, so I included a quick reminder of the steps in my title at the top. You can modify any posters you make to include reminders, formulas, properties, whatever your students may need.
My favorite part about scavenger hunts is that students get moving and the energy encourages collaboration as they problem solve to both complete the problems and locate the solutions.
Need to do this virtually? Or need to travel to multiple rooms and don't have time to post the posters in each room? This activity can also be done digitally using Google Forms or Google Slides to present the problems and solutions. Just take screenshots of the posters and add them to the slides or form.
Here's a T E M P L A T E to help you make a physical scavenger hunt and here are some great digital ones (and some more here) that I am a big fan of!
Fishbowl (Two versions)
Fishbowl is as simple as taking a worksheet you already have and cutting it up to create an activity that encourages collaboration and discourse. I have two versions of this game - a basic, and one that can be fun for holidays and just overall goofiness. What I love most about this activity is that you can literally decide to do it minutes before class and it is a super simple way to increase engagement, fight any energy plateau in your lessons and ignite some good laughter (thanks to version 2!)
Version 1: Cut a worksheet up into individual questions and put them in a basket. Each group gets a basket and they will work together on individual whiteboards to complete each of the problems. I tell my students this is not a "divide and conquer" activity - you "go fish" for ONE problem from the basket and then you ALL discuss and complete the SAME problem on your individual whiteboards. When everyone has the problem worked out on their whiteboard they call the teacher over to get their work checked. If I don't see work on everyone's whiteboard I do not check their work. This way each student has the responsibility of following along. I also feel that this encourages students to talk more than just working the solution out on a worksheet.
Version 2: Same process but with an added challenge of completing a group drawing. When a group gets their work checked, if it is correct then the teacher will allow them to go to the whiteboard to add to their team’s drawing. In the winter I do this with snowmen (see photo to the right). I will start students off with the 3 circles of the body then for every correct answer I will tell them to add a specific item to the drawing such as a hat, stick arms, carrot nose, buttons, etc. You could change the drawing to fit the seasonal or school themes!
To keep track of each group's progress I use a recording sheet. Here's an example of the recording sheet that I kept when we drew snowmen. You can make a copy and change it to meet your own needs.
The Lottery Game
The lottery game spices up any review activity that you already have. I like to use this with IXL.com, which my school has a subscription to, but you can use it with any similar online practice or skill practice worksheet.
All you need is a 1 - 100 chart that can be posted or projected so that students can take their turns writing on it.
When students get an answer correct in the assignment they get to put their name/initials on a free number in the chart.
When the chart is filled (or when the lesson time is almost up) then you are ready for the lottery!
I run the lottery using the Google.com random number generator...like I literally google "random number generator" and it pops up in the search window. I change the settings so the min is 1 and max is 100 then we generate some winners!
Just like any reward system, you can choose to offer prizes that cost money or are totally free. I like to give candy because I typically have it stocked up, but you can also give prizes like homework passes, bonus points, or a "choose your own seat" pass.
Stations
Station teaching is my absolute favorite way to differentiate and ignite engagement in my classroom. It can be easy to get overwhelmed and think that you need to have multiple lessons created in order to implement stations, but that isn't the case. In a previous blog post I outline how you can create a three-station model with little-to-prep, while having a high impact! Read how here. Stations are great for review because they help differentiate so all students are challenged at the appropriate level!
Share your questions, comments and experiences in the comments below!
Share your favorite low-to-no prep review activities!
What is your favorite activity and why?
How would you make these activities even better?
What questions do you have about these activities?
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