May 20

May 20 Graphing and Strategic Math Thinking

Hi friends! Right before my district closed because of Covid-19 my class had recently wrapped up our graphing unit. Graphing has always been a fun unit to teach because the kids really get into it and they like making their own graphs. But I’ve also felt in the past I wasn’t going deep enough with their understanding of graphing. Yeah, they could use data to make bar graphs, but they struggle to really analyze the data.

So this year, I incorporated what I’ve learned about strategic math thinking into our graphing unit. I had my kids comparing data in a graph using the greater than and less than symbols, and then writing out explanations to support their answers. We also focused a lot on analyzing claims about the data in a graph and then proving or disproving the claim.

This is an example of a graph I used with my students and incorporated greater than and less than with the data.

Our math textbook doesn’t include pie graphs, but my students are always tested on them during NWEA Maps testing, so we I created my own!

After a couple days of practice, they were on fire! Even my kids who had struggled a lot this year were able to identify a claim, and then respond to it with evidence from the graph. It was one of those amazing teacher moments when your whole class is really understanding and applying what you’re teaching them!

For me, connecting graphing with strategic math thinking made a ton of sense. My kids were already doing so great with identifying visual analysis questions, so we were able to make the leap to the more complex claims analysis. It was such a great way to increase the rigor, and deepen their understanding, without adding much extra work for myself.