A bit of history

Over the last few years we have changed our MHF4U classroom from a space where the teacher talks and the students listen to one where the students talk and the teacher listens. First we rearranged the desks so students are in groups of three. Then we created and borrowed group activities to use as vehicles for instruction. After hearing Peter Liljedahl speak we lined the walls with whiteboards so that every group has a vertical, non-permanent surface to work on. We also put our students in different random groups every day. These last two changes have had the greatest impact on student engagement. On the rare occasions the teacher gives direct instruction to a group of seated students we have seen and felt the level of engagement drop from the moment they sat down. Finally, we want to make sure we give our students multiple opportunities to show their understanding in each strand so we started spiraling through the course.

This website is dedicated to sharing the activities and their organization into a spiraled course.