Pre-Algebra class was completely silent yesterday. As students arrived I put my finger to my lips and zipped them, pointed toward their seats and made the universal gesture for sit down and read (i.e. I put my hands together as in prayer then opened them like a book and stared at them.) Clever students that they are, they caught on. Once everyone was seated and quietly reading, I lightly tapped a desk to get their attention and give them silent instructions.
The silence was because the class next door was doing state required ISAT testing. What came next was because I still had a class to teach.
Silently, with gestures, students were put into small groups. I pointed to the board where the rules for the class were written (e.g. all communication was to be written or with pantomime), along with the 5 activities each group was required to complete. I pointed to Get scratch paper here to write notes on and Pick up activity 1 here, etc.
There were a few grumblers at first, but quickly most everyone got into it. Students worked silently, gesturing wildly to each other and writing notes to each other as they calculated, charted and mapped the increase or decrease in the House of Representatives from each state based on the last census. Silently, they drew triangles on a geoboard when given only the hypotenuse, and then calculated the length of the hypotenuse using the Pythagorean theorem.
As a teacher, it was challenging not to whisper suggestions. But I found it worked better to answer questions in writing and to show or draw errors rather than explain them. It was amazing how carefully students attended to my answers when they had to wait for me to write them out. The best moment came when students were plotting right triangles on the geoboard – points on a grid that they draw lines through to create geometrical objects. The instructions told the students to use a ruler to draw the lines connecting the points. They assumed that they were supposed to use the rulers to measure the sides of the triangles as well. By drawing loops from point to point to point, I was able to show them that they were to compute the sides of the triangles in generic units rather than in inches or centimeters. As I pointed this out to each group (always silently) the response was the same: The look of Ah Ha!
We have this bulletin board in our classroom that says “A Picture is Worth 1000 Words.” Hmm. I am wondering if something else is worth 1000 words…Ah Ha!
9 responses so far ↓
1 cmbrown 192.168.33.252 not found // Mar 4, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Back in my band director days on occasion we would run silent rehearsals. All instruction was through conducting gestures or I would sing to correct mistakes in performance - ok that part isn't silent but we did not talk.
Often we would use just breath and the keys to our instruments to practice parts - for some reason this was very effective as you could hear others keys being clicked and it was obvious if we weren't together - but it saves kids chops in a long rehearsal.
My students found it odd at first of course, but once they got going a strange kind of hypnosis came over the group and we played more together, listening better to each other and reacting to the musicians around us. Rehearsals were more productive and even the students found this a better way to rehearse.
Very cool you did this today in a math class!
2 stewartn 192.168.33.96 not found // Mar 4, 2009 at 1:56 pm
@cmbrown Thanks for your comment. It was truly born of necessity - but it worked. While for us it was not that "a strange kind of hypnosis came over the group," although I could see that happening doing the same thing in a band. Rather, we had a unity of purpose - a challenge - and we all became problem solvers.
3 Justen P 192.168.32.18 not found // Mar 4, 2009 at 3:18 pm
The blog that was posted was farly long. I wish it was shorter but it is ok.
4 Daniel 192.168.32.18 not found // Mar 4, 2009 at 3:43 pm
The activities were extremely long but were a bit fun also.
5 stewartn 192.168.33.96 not found // Mar 4, 2009 at 5:15 pm
@Justen P Ah-Ha!...maybe I shouldn't use so many words! - Ms. Stewart
6 stewartn 192.168.33.96 not found // Mar 4, 2009 at 5:19 pm
@Daniel I always enjoy your insightful comments. I forgot to mention that the class was an hour and ten minutes because of the testing going on elsewhere. That did make the activities long. Working silently somehow made them more intense, too.
7 Lani
// Mar 4, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Hi Ms. Stewart and students--
Your silent class period sounds like a wonderful way to learn. Did you find that despite the silence you were listening much closer?
Best wishes,
Lani
8 olivia k 192.168.32.18 not found // Mar 6, 2009 at 10:05 am
@Lani Hi I'm a student that was in that class period the other day and i do find that the silence made us listen much more. We were more concentrated on our work than just listening to the teacher because that can get a little boring. It was also more fun and different, and as a student in school, we like change.
Hope this is helpful
Olivia
9 pagakisk
// Mar 15, 2009 at 8:53 am
I stumbled across this blog as I was searching for a different one, but was captivate, both by Mrs. Stewart's recount of the silent class and all of your responses. Olivia, that was quite insightful. Sounds like a wonderful practice that maybe all teachers should consider trying at least once.
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