Slope Between Two Points – Around the Room Practice Activity

Do you want to give your students lots of practice finding the slope between two points?  Do you want to spark the interests of your students about what you will be learning that day?  More than that, do you want to spark the interests of every single person who walks into your room?

Inspired by Mimi’s post about practicing exponent rules, I decided to change things up last week while teaching my students how to find the slope between two points.  We did our interactive notebook entry and lots of practice on our dry erase boards.  Instead of giving my students a worksheet, I took the 16 problems from the worksheet and wrote them on index cards.  I spent a few minutes taping them around the room.

Let me tell you, these index cards were the first thing everybody noticed when they walked into my classroom.  I had question after question about what the cards were for.  I had the students find a problem to solve, write their answer on their dry erase board, and hold it up for me to check.  I could have written the answer on the back of the card, but I really wanted to get a sense of which students were getting the hang of the procedure and which still needed more practice.

The students got instant feedback on their work.  I got instant feedback on their level of understanding.  The students got to get up and move around.  Each student worked at their own pace.  Some finished all sixteen problems.  Others only got through two or three.  But, for the most part, each student was working for the entire time.

Some of my upper level classes were jealous because they didn’t get to play a game like my Algebra 1 students did.  I found it interesting that placing the problems around the room instead of on a worksheet turns practice into a game.  Student after student asked me about the cards, what they meant, and why they were up around my room.

I would definitely do this activity again!