Why March is the Perfect Time to Innovate

When I taught high school math, March was always the most challenging time of my year.  Summer was in sight, but still far away.  After many months of hard work, it felt hard to stay motivated.

To fight this, I would use the spring as an opportunity to test out new tools and strategies, so I’d be ready to use them full-time (or know if they wouldn’t work) come August.  My classroom became an innovation lab -- I had two months to try as many new practices as I could, and I wanted to maximize that time!

If you want to follow my lead and spice things up this spring, here are a few things you can do:

1) Experiment with a new video style.  Tired of screencasting on a computer?  Try recording yourself with your phone, or test out a different recording software.  (Descript is cool.)  Or, see if you can get a student to make a video for you.

2) Try a different progress tracker.  Play around with our auto-updating progress tracker template, or make a cool new game board.  Be creative!

3) Vary your mastery checks.  Let students demonstrate understanding in new ways: by presenting to you, or recording a video, or even suggesting their own ways of proving what they know.  You’ll likely be impressed by what they produce.

Remember that innovation takes trial and error.  So get those out of the way now, and once you start up again in the fall, your Modern Classroom will be a well-oiled machine.  Let us know how it goes!