Journal Article: Put the Right Spin on Student Work

Cohen, J.S. & Ely, R.E. (2010). Put the right spin on student work. Mathematics teaching in the middle school. 16(4), 208-215.

This article was about teaching probability using a spinner. The article first introduced the activity and had the directions of how the play the spinner game. Students were paired up, and together they needed to create a spinner. The spinner can have as many sectors or portions of the spinner twice. Each partner spins the wheel and records their data. The winner is the first person who has the sum of: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The next round of the game the partners need to alter their spinner. In the final round students need to alter their spinner again and put their findings in a blank spinner. The students then need to describe and justify why the layout of the spinner is vital and why the final spinner is more compatible than the first spinner. The article concludes by describing that fact that having very specific predetermined goals will help the teacher pick out the important realizations when choosing students work. (Cohen & Ely). The idea of probability wasn't fully understood by all the students but the vital main points of probability were introduced with the spinner activity.

I really enjoyed this article. I thought it was neat of how the game alone does a nice job explaining the concepts of probability. Even though this activity wasn't the easiest to follow I thought it was a nice way for some students to grasp it. Some students thrive on very original games and this may just be the game for them. When I was in 7th grade we did an activity where we needed to sew intrinsic shapes with colored string on black paper. We then had to calculate the angles of of the shape. Most students were very confused and thought this activity was weird because we were sewing in mathematics class. Personally, I loved the activity. I liked how we learned something new without using paper and a pencil. Knowing that an unusual activity works for others is great, but a general rule of thumb is too keep a record of which students are grasping the material and which ones the teacher needs to give extra attention to.

I thought the spinner game was fantastic! I will most definitely adapt this into my classroom. I really enjoy the fact that students need to work together to figure out how to make their spinner have the sum of each number. Being a special education major, I need to have a list of creative, authentic, and hands on ways to teach a variety of topics. Mathematics is usually a content area that students struggle with, so having creative lesson plans will hopefully help students stay intrigued throughout the lesson and comprehend the task at hand.