Classroom Connections

Collaboration is right up my alley. I absolutely love working with others, sharing ideas, and collaborating to create the best lessons possible for students. But, to be very honest, the thought of collaborating outside the boundaries of my school district made my knees a bit weak. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting. I'm not sure what I was fearful of. Questions raced through my mind. Who will I connect with? How will I make this work in my role as a Differentiation Specialist? Will I have enough time to coordinate this? Will I be imposing on another teacher? How will this fit into the curriculum and what I am teaching? Pushing those nagging questions to the wayside, I tried to focus on the excitement of connecting with another teacher and class, the amazing opportunities and possibilities such a connection creates for my students, and the life lessons about collaboration my students and I would walk away with at the end of this experience. I was psyched and ready to reach outside my district.

As it turned out, my first-grade students and I had a great experience connecting virtually with another class of first graders from a town about 15 minutes away. The experience did consume a lot of our time, but I believe the experience was meaningful enough to justify the time spent.


For my classroom connection, I connected with a risk-taking first-year teacher. We decided we would try to do virtual Math Talks using Flipgrid. It was easy enough to set up.  To begin, we planned to have kids make introductions to teach them to use Flipgrid as a tool. I was surprised at how quickly the first graders learned to use the tool. They had to log in with a QR code, choose the right grid, create a video based on the prompt, take a selfie, and submit. That seemed like a lot, but they did it with relative ease.

Once students were familiar with using the tool, we dove into the actual Which One Doesn’t Belong? math talk. Both classes of students were excited and engaged when creating and listening to the videos. They were interested in hearing each others’ ideas, and they learned from one another. Students picked up and began to use math vocabulary they hadn’t used before. Students learned to accept ideas other than their own if the reasoning was well justified.

One difficulty for me is that our first graders have 10 iPads per class, and I have to check iPads out from a shared cart. Each time students worked on this project, I had to reserve the iPads, find a time right before I was going to use them to go pick them up, and return the iPads immediately afterward. Because of this, I had just a few students at a time working on the Flipgrid activity while other students were working on another activity. This was a bit of a challenge because the kids using Flipgrid were still novices at using it and needed technical support. Luckily, students not using Flipgrid were able to work fairly independently.


This experience was beneficial for my students and me. I was able to make a connection with a like-minded educator from another school district. We were able to collaborate and share ideas to design a meaningful experience for our students. We shared our ideas about math talks and suggestions for the types of math talks we could have our students engage in. We even discussed the talk moves our students use in class to promote active listening. Our students benefit by learning to listen to and value the ideas of others - especially those that may be different from them. It also challenged students to think outside the box, use math vocabulary, and gain experience in justifying their math thinking to students beyond the walls of their classroom. Students were on the edge of their seats anxiously awaiting to hear feedback from their partner students. Talk about engagement. The audience was authentic, and they were excited to hear from and learn from each other.

This experience pushed me outside of my comfort zone. All of my fears were calmed.  Connecting with another educator was easy, and other educators are excited to make connections for their students as well. In fact, through this process, I found many other ways - Seesaw Blogs, ePals, and #EPICpals - just to name a few - to connect with educators that want to provide students a collaborative experience. While it did take some instructional time, my students learned so much during the process. The first graders learned how to think critically, to justify their reasoning, to use math vocabulary, and to provide meaningful feedback for peers. Providing students an authentic audience raised the level of student engagement and excitement about learning. What better use of class time could there be?


I look forward to continuing this Math Talk relationship for my first graders, and I'm looking for ways to collaborate with other teachers at other grade levels. I want my students at other grade levels to experience the same excitement about learning that they can get by connecting and collaborating with students outside of their school.