In my grade 2 classroom at the International Community School of Addis Ababa I am fortunate to have a 1-1 iPad mini set up along with individual Mathletics accounts for each student in my class … which means I can easily tech out my math rotations!

A typical math lesson in my classroom involves three rotations of 20 minutes with 90 second transitions (on a buzzer timer) and looks something like this:

  • Station 1: I teach the core lesson of the day.
  • Station 2: depending on the group my co-teacher either delivers an enrichment lesson or an intervention lesson (usually to provide for more practice with the skill).
  • Station 3: using their iPads students complete two assignments on Mathletics which then unlocks “Live Mathletics.”  At this point students have a choice of either playing Live Mathletics, playing math games with their buddy, or solving KenKen puzzles.

The reason I like Mathletics is that I can assign activities specifically relating to the content I am covering in class.  Usually, I will assign activities based on the content presented the previous day.  For example, assume Monday’s lesson is all about telling time, then on Tuesday the Mathletics activities will be based around time.  The results of the students’ activities (which Mathletics tracks and can issue reports on) can then be used as quick formative assessments that require no prep or grading on my part.  Generally students enjoy the activities (also because it allows them to accrue valuable points towards their various certification levels) and are keen to complete them in order to be able to compete in Live Mathletics (basically an online facts per minute competition with either their peers in the class or even from anywhere around the world that is online at the same time).

At the end of the day this tech solution works for me because it allows me to use tech as a formative assessment on how students are understanding the concepts covered in class and it gives students an opportunity to practice independently while receiving immediate feedback (if a question is answered incorrectly it demonstrates the right answer).