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4.2: Variety in Instruction

Before reviewing my ideas about variety, I think it is best to analyze the other component of this expectation—instruction. A student’s opportunity for academic instruction begins and ends with the school bell, and every limited minute in between should be instructive. Adolescent psychology indicates that the average high school student cannot focus in a lecture for more than twenty minutes. So how does a teacher overcome the obstacle that the adolescent attention span presents during a fifty minute or even ninety minute period?

The solution to the post-lecture dead air is to offer frequently changing and creative instruction. In the field, I witness a lot of wasted time in the classroom, especially in a block schedule. Some teachers seem all too willing to stop after twenty minutes and release the class into an activity or homework. Just because the lecture stops (as I believe it should) does not mean that instruction stops as well. This is where variety comes in, with the clear understanding that it must be instructive! A lesson should include several components related to the subject matter that utilize the entire period as active and passive learning alternately, appealing to all learning styles. Every minute in my class must be spent facilitating the learning of the material, because the structured academic time is so limited.

Do not misunderstand. I am not opposed to completing homework in class. In fact, I believe it is an extraordinary opportunity for learning if the teacher is an active participant who is engaged in the student work while walking around the room. At home, especially in mathematics, a stumbling block in the homework may go unresolved, assuming that homework is even attempted outside the classroom. Under supervised practice, the teacher can monitor work, recognize mistakes, ask leading questions, and prevent potential class-wide misunderstandings. Busy-work is bad teaching, but instructive supervised practice is actually a form of variety. If appropriately reflected upon, a self-assessment of the reasons behind any misunderstandings will lead to better teaching. Thus, variety can be instructive to the teacher as well.

Many Web-based activities and printed forms of entertainment, history or pop culture are worth experimenting with to sharpen the logical and mathematical mind. From technology to classic problems-solving exercises and their modern adaptations to games that involve algebraic or geometric concepts (click here, then click "Take a Tour of Version 4" for a demonstration if this software's power) to the technical skills needed to build an Excel spreadsheet, variety is an easy concept to integrate into the mathematical classroom if you really think about all of the applications. I have been a long-time subscriber to GAMES magazine and collect applicable activities I run across there, too.

In a recent micro-lesson, I planned an interactive Web-based review activity that led into the daily discussion. I lectured on the lesson for about twenty minutes using multiple representations. At the end of the lecture, I proposed supervised practice followed by another Web-based game more directly related to the new material. It would have been a very effective use of an entire seventy-five to ninety minute period.

Multiple representations and manipulatives, although often part of the lecture segment of the class, will become a stronger source of variety when my students are asked how to make a certain manipulative. Using class time to actually construct manipulatives or present a multiple representation from a student’s insight both add deeper understanding through variety in instruction.

Students’ learning styles are so important to their retention and inculcation of concepts. I have wondered how the layout of my classroom could be beneficial as well. Since math class will offer multiple representations, I have laid out a possible floorplan for the classroom that suits the learning styles of the students. Verbal learners will be seated on one side and visual on the other. I would experiment with writing definitions and theorems closer to the verbal side of the room and drawing and graphing closer to the visual side. The center of the room will be the kinesthetic learners. They will be surrounded by the manipulatives and charged with finding them, assisting with demonstrations, and returning them to the shelf—getting them up and about and offering a hands-on learning opportunity. Further, manipulatives will always be completely accessible for exploration, conjecture and reference during all exams.

Reading and writing are two more forms I hope to use in math. Students should experience putting mathematical concepts and experiences into their own descriptive words. As a form of variety in math class, I believe that silent reading/writing time is perfectly acceptable. As I have already outlined in expectation 1.1: Subject Matter, my students will keep math journals independently of their notebooks, and I have started to collect a library of interesting math concepts as they relate to history, art, science, and popular culture creating a powerful interdisciplinary trifecta of literacy, math, and another discipline. Through collaborative efforts outside the math classroom, students’ observations may be explored on an even higher plane if something is of interest to the entire class.

A lot of this may seem like fun-and-games that are more appropriate as rainy-day activities, but I believe that students look forward to this type of instruction. Whether or not they like a particular activity, they appreciate the time, creativity and effort a teacher puts into a non-traditional learning experience. They begin to make connections with forthcoming material because they anticipate the next day’s activity. I do not advocate variety simply for variety’s sake, but activities that are appropriate in rigor and relevant to the lesson should be encouraged frequently. As the “spice” of life, variety is essential in frequent small doses to creating zesty, rich, deep, complex, exotic and memorable experiences at school.