This summer at Twitter Math Camp my morning session was Talk Less, Smile More hosted by
Mattie B and Chris Luz. Our learning was about engaging students in debate style conversations to get them thinking and sharing ideas. The notion of course is to start low entry and let the student's thinker uppers go wild.

We had a sharing morning for the faculty last week of anything that is new and useful to know about kids, programs and curriculum. (I teach high school, there are 96 teachers) I was so excited to share what I had learned. I was given 10 minutes. (and it turns out I gave the only interactive presentation, really?)

I did a lovely activity I learned about at this session that starts with an Estimation 180.
How many people can fit in this elevator?
I asked the audience to think silently and write their number down (no cheater pants). I then cold called teachers (come on they are teachers) (and I got to rat out a history teacher who said "I don't do math," "Oh yes you do, I said, Everyone is mathematical, you wear a fit bit, you know how many students you have, you know how long it takes you to get to through your lessons etc...) to give me their estimates while I typed them into Desmos.  Everyone loves the visual median line! Thanks Nicole Paris (@solvingforx) for showing me how Chris and Mattie did this on Desmos!



I then called the teachers onto the stage (we met in the theater) to take a stand on either side of the median. Then then were asked to state their CLAIM and finish the sentence with My WARRANT is...

Let the fun begin! I ran back and forth with the microphone, one low, one high, until all the participants were heard. So much fun! One math teacher said, I noticed that the gentleman took up about a floor tile, so I counted all the floor tiles and pieces of floor tiles and estimated 30. One of the art teachers said this, "I was so overwhelmed by the news of Hurricane Harvey, that I just imagined all the babies and incubators, stacked up in the elevator, plus an attendant, that is how I got 131.

Then the big reveal:


That was Wednesday morning and even Friday on my way out for the long weekend, an English teacher stopped me and said how cool that lesson was. (and science teachers, and art teachers and special ed teachers have been telling how much fun they had and much they wanted to try it in their classrooms. )

I talk to and work with at least 80 teenagers everyday (we are on block schedule so we only have half our kids per day--didn't want you think we get to have reasonable class sizes or anything) and my knees shook for 3 hours afterwards.

Let me know if you use this lesson and how it goes!