Using Digital Math Intervention Units

Students come into our math classes with different backgrounds and levels of confidence. Some of those students really struggle to access the grade level concepts as we present them- they need extra time and extra support.

In March 2020, school buildings were abruptly closed. As math teachers scrambled to find ways to reach their students over the internet, Theresa and I spent time listening to their concerns and thinking about what was happening to students who already needed more support. For years we’d been thinking about how to better help teachers meet the unique needs of students in math intervention, but this abrupt shift to remote learning spurred us into action and led to the creation of completely digital math intervention units. The great news about these digital intervention units is that even though they were created during remote learning, they’re perfect for use inside the math intervention classroom.

What’s a Digital Math Intervention Unit?

Our digital math intervention units were designed to be used by students with the teacher in a supporting role. The teacher focuses on giving feedback to students, especially corrective feedback. Even though we created these units as a reaction to schools being shut down and students working remotely, ultimately they’re a more organized way of how I started my own math intervention classes for years.

Some of the major features that are important for intervention are small chunks of information, immediate practice, immediate feedback, and a lot of practice over time. Students who are in intervention classes typically need more practice with a concept before it becomes permanent in their brain. These units help meet all of those needs: small chunks, focused practice, feedback, and repetition over time.

Each unit takes 5 days to complete. Over those five days, students watch short videos, practice their skills, and get feedback. This gives them more time than they likely would have in their grade level class to really gain a foundation with the skill.

Also, it’s assumed when using these units that students have had some learning experience with the topic in the past. They may have even been taught the subject many times. This time around, though, the skills and concepts are broken down into small, bite-sized chunks, increasing their opportunity to “get it”!

These lessons are designed to take about 15-20 minutes per day for students. Of course, some students will fly through them and others will take longer. I plan for this to be 20 minutes of my 60 minute class period. This gives students a steady dose of specific skills over the course of a week. Now, let’s look at what a day of one of the units looks like.

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Daily Video

Each day starts with a short 3-5 minute pre-recorded video. The video consists of vocabulary, strategies, and worked problems. Depending on the setting you are in you could watch the video as a class or have students watch it independently. You may also want to teach your own short mini-lesson instead of watching the video. Below you can see the video from Day 1 of the Distributive Property Unit.

The video is short because we emphasize giving information in small scoops. This also gives students a chance to watch the video more than once if they need to. Once they’re done with the video, students will move on to the work, starting with a matching activity.

Matching Activity

To begin the practice portion of the daily work, students complete a matching activity.

The matching activity usually consists of 5 simple problems on the topic of the day. The questions or expressions are displayed across the top and the answers are in large boxes down below. Students have to complete the problems and match the correct answer with each question.

The pieces are easily dragged on the Google Slide. This serves as an easy warm-up activity that doesn’t intimidate students as they’re practicing the topic. Ideally, when working with students in the classroom, or in small group, they should quickly check their answers with the teacher for this activiy before moving on to the next section.

To mix things up, in some of our units we feature a different matching activity called four-corners. It starts with 6 questions in the middle and students drag them to the correct answer’s corner. The same answer can have more than one question. I love this activity because it’s a twist on a regular matching activity.

Multiple-Choice Questions

Next, students complete a series of multiple-choice questions. These questions look more like the typical worksheets or quiz questions that students normally see. Students complete the work for each question and then drag a star next to the correct answer.

If they struggle with these questions they can ask the teacher for help or watch the video one more time. This part of the practice will help you see where the student is with this skill and if they’re making improvement from day to day.

Error Analysis

The error analysis section gives students a chance to think about the skill from a different angle. This task requires deeper thinking. Doing error analysis gives you an insight into what the students are thinking because they have to explain their reasoning.

One type of error analysis is two truths and a lie. Here students examine three worked examples and identify which two are correct and which one is incorrect. After that, they explain why they chose what they chose. It’s a simple way to get kids thinking deeper.

Another activity we use in these digital intervention units is “Who is Right?” This activity has two worked problems or sentence or explanation and the student has to identify which character is right and which one is wrong. They drag the word “right” to the correct answer and “wrong” to the wrong answer. Then, they explain their answer choices.

Digital math intervention units should give students a chance to analyze common errors and explain their math thinking.

Giving students a chance to explain their thinking is an important part of intervention. The more chances they get to process the concept, the more likely they’ll remember it. I find this type of identifying errors activity to be accessible for kids who struggle and give them more confidence as they learn.

Reflection

Many students in intervention classes haven’t had a lot of success in math. Part of why they haven’t had success is because they’re trying to memorize a whole bunch of steps and they don’t really get opportunities to think about their own learning. Basically, they go through the motions.

One way to try and break this cycle is by having students reflect on their learning every day. This part of the intervention is crucial. It gives students a chance to evaluate their own learning and progress.

Reflecting on their learning, these digital intervention units help students slow down and practice their math skills.

Giving Feedback

Ideally, you can give students feedback while they’re working through the problems. Having students check in after the matching and multiple choice sections provides a great routine and allows you to see if students are on-track before too much time passes.

If you’re working with students remotely, you’ll have to leave feedback asynchronously. One way to give students feedback is to make the answer keys available after they have finished their work. You can teach students to use answer keys for learning and not just for scores and grades.

Grades are a tricky thing in intervention classes. In my opinion there should be no grade in an intervention class. The emphasis should be on learning and if they are putting forth effort, then they get the credit in the gradebook. You don’t want students to stop trying because of a grade. Feedback always trumps grades. and should be the primary focus of this activity (even if you have to give grades).

Fitting these units into your intervention

These digital math interventions units are designed to be about 20 minutes of class time for the day. When planning for fast finishers, you’ll want to have something ready for them to move on to. Ideally, you’ll have an activity that fast finishers can go in and out of easily, like an independent computer program or learning path of some sort.

In addition to these digital units I like to play whole class review games related to the same topic. We’ll do a lot of one topic over the course of the week. To practice together I like to play knockout games, Kahoot, bingo, the target game, etc.

These intervention math units definitely work as a strong base for an intervention program. They give students so much repetition, and students enjoy them. These activities lower the barrier of entry for students and help them make steps forward in their understanding of math.