I presented at NCTM’s regional conference in Phoenix a few weeks ago on reasons to develop and use effective warm up routines. Here is the blurb on the session:
Warm-Up Routines: Developing Mindset While Enhancing Math Understanding
Warm-up activities can maximize class time, set class culture, develop growth mindset in students and fill gaps, or extend student understanding. Participants will engage in a collection of high leverage warm-up routines, learn about research supporting warm-ups, and learn how to use them to grow their students and their teaching practice.
Here are my slides from the session:
Here is the (editable) warm up sheet that I used as a sample sheet to give participants a starting point to adapt this to their own classes and style. I also created and linked to a sheet where I have been collecting awesome warm up routines and tried to align each to the math practice standards.
It was super scary! The room filled to capacity (over 120 participants) at an 8 am session. It was so nice to have the familiar faces of Andrew Browning Couch, Megan Schmidt, Stephanie Bowyer, Daniel Schneider and Justin Aion, and Katherine Bryant in the room. I am honored that they came to my session considering they already know the routines I was sharing.
I am curious why this session was so high interest. Was it because the session title included the super-hot-buzz-word: mindset? Was it because the session included specific and awesome, ready to use the next day, teaching strategies?
I learned and grew as a teacher by signing up to facilitate a session at a NCTM conference and I hope to do it again. Proposals for 2017 are due December 1st, and at this point, I am not sure what to present. I want it to be a valuable addition to the overall conference, and be considered useful by the participants.
I would like these conferences to have more sessions facilitated by teachers and researchers, and less by consultants and for-profit businesses promoting their products (I’m looking at you, TI). As teachers, we all are researching effective teaching daily through direct application. We all have something useful that we discovered works for us in our classrooms and I encourage you to apply to present a session too!
Crazy Math Teacher Lady 
I have been using a modified version of your warm up sheet for a year and I, and my students, LOVE it. It has allowed us to connect on and discuss important topics that weren’t necessarily hot content topics. It has also allowed all students entry into class and me a chance to promote my beliefs that their THINKING is the most important thing to me, not just a correct answer. Thank you for sharing this and for blogging about it again! Best!
I’m so glad you found it helpful! I love using warm ups as a space to try new teaching ideas and to dig deep into students understanding. It impacts my entire class culture.
This is awesome! I wish I’d had a template like this to norm my warm ups when I was still in the classroom. I’m totally sharing it with some of my teachers. I know some of them that are struggling to find ways to include numeracy in the high school math classroom would use it!
One question; where did you get the quote from Steve Leinwand? Looks like something I might need to read or look into as a new(er) High School Math Instructional Coach. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for letting me know that you find this helpful.
You can read Steve’s article here: http://steveleinwand.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/FourPostulatesforChange.pdf
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Thanks, Lisa!
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