Momentum

The little things

A Mistake

Three years ago I started at my current school. It was my first time teaching 7th grade. New school, new curriculum, new context. I had a lot to learn.

I began the year using the warmup activities in my curriculum as a "Do Now" at the start of each class. It was a mess. The problems were too hard, too language-heavy for many of my students, too much for them to do independently. It was a bad way to start class. Students came in, saw a problem they didn’t know how to solve, and gave up. That attitude became contagious and sapped the energy from the room.

I changed course after the first few weeks and starting writing my own Do Now problems that were more accessible. It took me a few more weeks to get the difficulty right and by then the damage was done. A lot of students had fallen into the habit of coming into class, barely even looking at the paper in front of them, and giving up. I made a bit of progress as the year went on but habits are hard to break.

Habits

Now I put a lot of effort into nailing my beginning-of-class routine from day one. I start with a mix of multiplication facts and math vocab they’ve seen before, introducing the vocab gradually and with a lot of repetition so students have multiple chances to get it. I gradually include more and more different types of problems as students learn more throughout the year. I add a puzzle (for instance a number snake or Inaba puzzle) as an optional challenge to make sure there’s something for everyone. My goal is to build momentum: students come into class, see something they know how to do, and get that small hit of dopamine from getting a question right. If they don’t know an answer they’ll likely see the question again in a day or two. I use that confidence to get students trying more challenging problems as class goes on, and gradually increase the rigor of my Do Nows throughout the year.

I look at lots of things in my class through the lens of momentum. At the end of most classes I have students do a little bit of practice. We summarize whatever we did for the rest of the period, and students have 5-10 minutes to finish a short practice assignment. It's typically 10-15 problems, with a few problems from our current topic and a few review problems targeting key skills. Early in the year, students develop habits around this time. If I give too many problems that are too hard early on, students get in the habit of avoiding it. If they start short and accessible, students get in the habit of completing it. It's taken me time to dial in the rigor until it's just right.

One evergreen debate in education is engagement vs compliance. Teachers don't want students to do things because they're forced to, because of extrinsic incentives or threats or whatever. They want to engage students by finding things they’re interested in, that feel relevant to them. There’s a good point there — relying too much on compliance and extrinsic incentives can create avoidance behaviors, and finding a lesson that really engages students is a great feeling.

But the engagement vs compliance debate misses a big area in the middle: habits. I try to get my students to build habits around our routines in math class. Students don't sit down to do a Do Now or practice ten proportions and coordinate plane problems because they're the most thrilling questions they've ever seen. They also don't do it because I'm threatening to call their mother or dock their grade if they blow it off. They do it because it's a habit, because they know the problems are doable, they will get help if they need it, because of that little dopamine boost from getting problems right and finishing an assignment. Habits are powerful. Those habits build momentum as the year goes on. Our routines get sharper and more efficient. Confidence spills over from our most common routines into more ambitious and challenging problems. Students feel good about doing math and feel motivated to do more math. It’s a virtuous cycle but it starts small. Getting those habits and routines right at the start of the year is the start of the momentum that builds toward everything else.