Every year a new set of students enter your classroom. From day one you have the opportunity to get to know them. One of the biggest responsibilities of being a teacher is finding out who your students are and figuring out how to help them. But how exactly can we do that from day one?
As a middle school math teacher you have so many students to get to know. Each one brings unique experiences and backgrounds with them to your classroom. The beginning of the year can be hectic, but getting to know your students from the start is a top priority. Let’s explore the 3 things you must know about your new math students. These will get the school year started off on the right foot, and help your teaching be even more effective.
#1- Getting to know students academically
One of the first things you will learn about your students is how they’re doing academically. Students are much more than test scores and a set of numbers, but understanding those numbers is still important.
You may have access to test scores from the previous year. If so, that’s a great place to get started. Otherwise, think about what pre-tests you have available to you to use. These scores won’t give you a complete picture of a student academically, but they can give you a snapshot.
To get a good sense of where students are academically, plan beginning of the year activities that will give you an idea about what they know, and what’s missing. Starting on the first day of school I would suggest giving students some basic problems from the previous year’s content. Math mazes are a great way to have students solve a series of math problems because they’re less intimidated (and do more math) in this type of activity. Use these activities to evaluate a student’s basic understanding.
Using Students’ Academic Information
After you get to know your students academically, you can group them into 3 general groups. Students fall into roughly these categories: 1) below grade level, 2) students who are on-grade level, 3) and students who are above the grade level expectation. In reality you’ll have students across a spectrum of understanding and experience, but grouping them into these 3 groups is a good place to start.
Once you’ve identified who’s in each group, you can think about specific ways to tailor your classroom instruction and activities for the 3 groups. Not everything will be differentiated everyday. However, knowing your students’ academic needs will help you find ways to better meet all the learners in your room wherever they are.
For example, if students can’t plot a point on a graph, then they’ll struggle with graphing lines. If they don’t know how to find the area of a rectangle, then surface area will pose some issues for them. Take the time to see where they are with the basic foundational skills they need for your grade level. This insight will help you so much as the school year gets going.
Want to try out a free math maze today? Sign up for the Maze of the Month club and get a free maze on middle school math concepts sent right to your inbox each month. Each maze has 2 versions- a printable & a digital version built in Google Slides (perfect for whatever your classroom looks like!) Plus, you’ll get an adding and subtracting integers maze right away.
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#2- Getting to know your students as learners
Another aspect of each student that you need to understand is how they see themself as a math learner. Students may come to you with baggage from previous math learning experiences. So, you can use their own self-perceptions to know how to encourage them to learn math in your classroom.
One way to learn about how students see themselves as math students is to give them a survey during the first few days of school. Let them tell you how they picture themselves and what their experience learning math has been. This can be one of the most insightful things you can do because students get to express their ideas in their own words. You can use this information to tailor your support for each student.
Another thing I like to do to learn about students as learners is to have them play a game that isn’t math skill based. The game I use is called Guesses and Wagers. Students work in teams to try and answer trivia questions related to math (to read more about how to play this game, check out this post). When you listen to how students talk you get a glimpse into their mindset and confidence.
#3- Getting to know your students personally
Students are more than test scores and learner profiles, though. We need to know and relate to them on a human level too. So, it’s important to get to know them personally.
The first priority in getting to know students personally should be to learn your students’ names. That can be a a tall order when you have so many new students. But, taking a few extra minutes to practice their names while they’re working on a worksheet or survey will pay off for you in the long run.
For the first few days you might want them to display name tags (we have a free table name tent in our 7 Tips for Intervention download. You can grab it here). Make it part of your practice the first few days to study the seating chart during class. Or practice calling students by name using their display name tags. lf you put your mind to it you can learn all of your students’ names within a couple of days.
Also, the sooner that you know something unique about each student, the more confident students will be in you as a teacher. You can learn about them through games or surveys. Some kids will easily tell you everything about them and others are very private. I’ve found over the years that students love to talk about their dogs, their sports teams, the instruments they play, their hobbies, and their favorite music. Choose a couple of quirky things about you to share with them and they’ll share things like that with you too.
Organizing Student Information
One final tip is to organize what you’re learning about students into your own data sheet. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it can help you keep track of the important information you’re gathering. Here’s a few columns I had on my data sheet:
- Name
- Preferred Name
- Special notes (IEP supports, behavior plan, 504 plan, language learner, etc)
- Pre Test Score
- Learner observations/profile
- Interests
Keeping track of this information helps you make sure you’re looking at each of your students, and can organize all the things you’re learning about your new students. You may find that after the first quarter of the school year you hardly need to refer to it. Or maybe you’ll add ongoing information as the year progresses.
Activities for Getting to Know Your Students Better
There are lots of different ice breakers and “get to know you” activities out there. Here are some of our favorites to use with new students:
Find someone who
This activity gets the whole class up and moving around. Students have a page of traits or tasks and they try to find someone who has that trait or who can perform that task. Usually, this is presented on a simple grid. Students try to complete their grid, getting as many of the squares signed off by a classmate as they can.
Student Surveys
You can survey students about their previous experience with math, their interests, and learning preferences. I love to include a question where students can tell me anything they want me to know about them. Many students will share important information that’ll let you know that they are shy, they have a recent trauma in their life, or that they hate math. This gives you a glimpse into their world and you can help more kids from the start of the year.
Math About You
This activity adds a little fun to the first week of school. You’ll also get to see how comfortable students are with numbers. Students write expressions to be simplified that will result in a number related to their life. For example, the question might be, “How many siblings do you have?” and the student writes the expression 2(10) – 14. (This is how many siblings I have). Then, they share their expressions with other students and they simplify the expressions to find out the answer to the question.
How this will pay off over the year
Setting up systems and taking the time to get to know students will pay off immediately. Students work harder for teachers who they believe care about them. The best way to show students that you care about them more than the subject area is to put getting to know them as a priority.
Also, the more you see your students as people with a unique story, the more you’ll be able to empathize with them. So much of teaching and helping students to learn is based on the relationship you have with students.
Find some ways to get to know your students from the first day of school. It’s worth every minute and it will make the learning time throughout the whole year more productive.
