Building capacity through Warm-ups and Questions of the day

Building capacity through Warm-ups and Questions of the day

A common way to spiral content is giving students a "problem of the day" for students to answer. Through work with the Timberline 5th grade team this year, we've landed on a simple system that works really well to build student understanding one step at a time. 

We began by asking, "What is it that students have the most trouble with?" The answer is often interpreting graphs, data tables, charts, and pictures. (Those dual-coded questions get a kid every time!)

So, instead of posting a whole question for students to answer, we began with the graphic and a simple question, like this. This was a warm-up question for day 1.

 

Day 2 got a little more complex in that the question from the released STAAR was added, but no answer choices were included, like this.

Day 3 of the same question now gave students the answer choices and asked students to justify their answer. This is really the C-E-R process! Students had to claim that one answer choice was correct and provide evidence and reasoning as to why they selected that. (sneaky!)

Just like with a regular Warm-up or Question of the Day, teachers spent a minute or two addressing students' responses. 

The graphics were simply clipped from a released STAAR question using Shift+Command+4. These were organized into a Google Slides deck. Everyone on the team contributed to adding warm-up questions in the three-step format, so we all shared the burden of creating it. And three slides meant three warm-ups! 

Unpacking a question by beginning with the graphic can really help a student build understanding and recognize the value in diving deep into what the picture or table is telling her.