Three Tips For "Thin Sliced" Curricular Tasks

On Friday, I wrapped up a six-week unit introducing ratios, rates, and percentages to my sixth graders.  If you've been following my thinking classroom progress, this unit started right around the time when I figured out that I need to back up and focus on sequencing my implementation of the Thinking Classrooms Practices, and I've been able to report a few breakthrough days since (this one and this one). 

Since those breakthroughs, I've had day-in-and-day-out routine success - a stretch of days where almost every one has been predictably successful.  I don't want to overstate how nice it is to be "stuck" in a routine where the kids are on a roll and where each day's thinking task is leading to real, deep, and lasting learning that I can count on.  I was really, really good at running a mimicking classroom, and there were days earlier this year where I never thought I'd get back to that comfort level in a Thinking Classroom.
  

Looking back at this six-week run of excellent thinking and learning, which resulted in a beyond-my-wildest-expectations, incredibly successful traditional unit test yesterday, I think that most of the success can be attributed to one, main practice that I seem to have gotten down pat:

The thin-sliced, curricular thinking task.

I talked a lot about success with those in a recent post, and I've had further growth with them since.  My examples in that post all involved asking questions about a pre-existing, naturally engaging situation.  In the weeks since, however, I've had the same benefit from just creating lists of questions that stand on their own.  Here are some examples.

• Identifying Unit Rates on the Coordinate Plane
• Introducing the Idea of A Percentage (A Ratio Out of 100)​
• ​Finding A Missing Part In Percent Problems
• Finding A Missing Whole In Percent Problems
• ​Converting Between Fractions, Decimals, and Percentages

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As you can probably see, they're just questions!  Nothing special - just straight-forward math to think about, and it's working wonders.  Most days, the kids are leaving class with a decent command of the day's topic, and I can just touch it up with some maintenance during recall practice in the upcoming days (or, of course, extend upon it for the next topic).

All of the lessons linked above were from a unit on special ratios (unit rates, measurement conversions, and percentages).  The kids took a test on it this past week, and they absolutely blew the doors off of it.  I didn't review and I didn't supplement with direct instruction beyond basic concepts and vocabulary here and there.  The thin-sliced, curricular thinking tasks did all of the heavy lifting.  The kids learned to genuinely think about and understand ratio thinking for three weeks, and it showed.

Finally having some success with this, here, I think, is what I 've learned about creating curricular tasks.
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1. "You Can ALready.... But What ABout...."

I wish I could remember who I learned this from so I could cite it properly, but I don't.  At some point in the past, I learned to always introduce today's learning topic in the form of "you can already ________, but what about _______?"  For example, the three days of thinking tasks transitioning from ratio thinking to percentages were introduced like this:

Introducing Percentage Thinking (Day 1)

Finding A Missing Part In Percent Problems (Day 2)

​Finding A Missing Whole In Percent Problems

In each case, the slide on the left represents a problem the kids had already done as recall practice to remind them of yesterday's learning, and the slide on the right launched the thinking task.  What I love about framing my lessons this way is that it forces me to make sure I never present anything as being "brand new;" everything - EVERYTHING - is an extension of some kind of math you already know, not some brand new, stand-alone idea you need to figure out.  It's just the next turn of the dial.
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I didn't learn the specific "you can already...but what about...." language from Building Thinking Classrooms, but the idea is there.

2. The Magic Is In The Mild

As I create, implement, and reflect on the success or failure of these thinking tasks day in and day out, I've come to believe that success is all in making the mildest questions really mild - in setting the floor really low.  If the opening, mild questions are well crafted so that the kids can access today's new topic entirely using math they already know, they gain confidence and get into that flow-state almost instantly.  I almost never have students give up because the later, spicier tasks are too hard. If they give up, it is because I made the mild​ tasks too hard and they couldn't get any momentum.

The magic is in the mild.

​The floor has to be set in a way that lets them get started with minimal friction.  If I set the task up correctly (see #1 above), they almost feel like they're doing math they already know, and they dig right in.  They have to be able to get their feet on the ground first, and that's what the intro question and the mild questions are all about.

(UPDATE: I've since written afull post on this idea that "the magic is in the mild.")
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3. If I want It Done Right, I have To DO It Myself

Unfortunately, I haven't found a way around an unfortunate truth: if I want these tasks done right, I have to do them myself.  I see a lot of advice in the BTC community spaces recommending AI or good websites for curricular tasks for generating the questions, but I haven't found that those produce the results I'm looking for. I know my state standards, I know where I want the lesson to take the kids, and I know content well enough to know what represents the next level of "spiciness," which means I have to create the tasks more days than not. 

This isn't to say I never use resources from elsewhere, but I pretty much always write the questions.  Yes, it takes a long time.  Yes, it is tedious.  Yes, I wish I had a plug-and-play set of questions or a dependable resource bank made by someone who thinks about curricular tasks the way I do.  So far, however, all of my best results are coming when I sit down every day and I write the d*&$ questions myself.
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I can't Believe This Works

Most days, while we're on this roll, I feel like all I'm doing is showing up and telling the kids "today I hope you learn x, so go figure it out."  I know that's not the case, as I spend close to 90 minutes planning for every lesson, but if all that planning is done meticulously, class itself really does feel that way.  After 20 years of teaching traditionally (with great success), I almost can't believe this works.  There are days or class periods where I don't even have to consolidate.
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If sliced thin (and strategically) enough, the kids are engaged in minutes and often throttle through 2-3 days of content before they know what happened.  

This run of success has been a much-needed one.  I owe it all to thin-sliced curricular tasks.

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