For the last couple of years, I have been sporadically checking the dy/dan blog that is put out by the very talented and insightful Dan Meyer. I hope one day to find enough time left over at the end of the day to crawl out of the Lurker role and insert myself into the active community of learners that this man has perpetuated with his Socratic ponderings of "What if".
In the end I decided to dedicate myself to one strategic change and incorporate it into the daily routine this year. The new practice that I chose to incorporate into our daily routine is the regular use of student whiteboards to develop our mental math skills. At least that is how it started out. I had some games and gimmicks that I had developed a Notebook document around and the kids loved it. I soon realized that I could be having the students show me their current level of understanding at any point in the lesson with these whiteboards. The largest boon to our learning came when I realized that this was the perfect vehicle to throw in random review questions through out the course of the year. This one simple, elegant, powerful idea has been a real game changer for our learning community. I can't wait to read through the resource again to see what strategy we can claim for our own next year! Commit, implement and adapt! Growth will be your reward.