001my name is Caitlin Beamish and I teach math here at West Chicago Community High School this is my second year teaching over the summer we read a book called building thinking classrooms which focuses on changing the way that we do math in the high school setting making it very much more interactive and student focused so this year as we started reshaping our curriculum we really focus on ways to connect students prior knowledge to what we're doing and the new topics that we learn and we really have seen a difference in the way that students interact with the material are really motivated and learning and extending upon what they know and just re-engaging students in the math that we do so this is my eighth year here at West Chicago Community High School and in my
002role it's always been my goal to kind of create more engaging experiences for the students in mathematics and as we ran into the pandemic that year where everyone was teaching at home that was really nearly impossible and then when we came back I really saw that need even more students were kind of disengaged and reluctant to kind of work with each other and talk with one another so this building thing drinking classrooms was a nice framework to utilize to try to kind of promote that to happen when I read building thinking classrooms I think it was just really eye-opening of just seeing a really Hands-On way to get students more involved in the classroom it gave just a really specific structure for a way to get every student involved putting them up at the whiteboards
003is kind of their structure to do it so having students take the Whiteboard markers have them up at the whiteboards talking with each other doing them problems on the board at first it sounded like something so small I didn't really believe that it would make such a big difference but then just kind of the more that I kept trying it the more that the kids loved doing it they were so engaged they loved having the non-permanent space up there to make mistakes to be able to erase to fix it they started talking with each other started figuring out each other's mistakes I didn't even have to help them with it all of those things just really helped the students to take ownership of their own learning really when I kind of think about our kind
004of philosophy or goal of living learning and leading here at West Chicago I think the building thinking classrooms really helps with that learning and that leading part our goal as Educators regardless of the content that we have is always to create thinkers and Learners to be a good learner it's not sitting in a classroom listening to what a teacher says and then just regurgitating what they've said onto a piece of paper we're trying to get them to think mathematically to think critically and really in all subjects that's what we want them to do and in terms of that leadership piece to be a true leader I think you have the ability to work with a variety of different people to come and try to solve problems together and complete tasks together because when we get
005out into the professional world people are going to be working with others and having to collaborate with one another part of the building thinking classrooms model is randomized groups the whole point of randomizing it is that students get comfortable learning with whoever they're with so they kind of I think are pointed back to the point of math which is just learning how to problem solve and learning to do that with whomever and I think when you randomize the groups the students end up having to learn to explain things multiple ways because they're not just used to one person's learning style they have to really be able to explain it in many different ways which I think deepens their understanding students have really liked doing the Whiteboard work and we usually do it about two to
006three times per week my name is Phoebe Silber Kimber and at this year I'm learning geometry I really enjoyed that I'm learning geometry with my teachers and those students I really enjoyed that that part that I'm standing up and doing in the boards with the students is really good instead of death you're going to divorce and writing questioning and answering the questions so I really like talking with the students about geometry and I they raise my hand and answer the questions I really like it because uh it's more open your mind when you know the geometry like math