2025 MidSchoolMath National Conference

What began as The Daily Dice and Domino Do Now (4-D Now) many years ago, has become a go-to activity, from the elementary grades through high school algebra.

In this session, I'll introduce and explore one of my favorite formats to use for openers, main lessons, reviews, and at-the-board games, with full classroom engagement, participation, and discussion. 4-D lessons involve all students. We'll use dice and dominoes to generate numbers to practice & confirm the 4 operations of fractions, decimals and percents on graph paper and The Square Abacus.  You'll leave with an understanding of this versatile and adaptable lesson.

We know we want our students to collaborate and work together but aren't sure how to facilitate this? In this session, I'll share how I move beyond saying "work with your group or partner" with collaboration routines!

I'll share three collaboration routines I have implemented and assessed in my own classroom: Collaboration Cards at vertical surfaces, Everyday Language Routines to apply to any problem, and Competitive Collaboration for game based engagement. You'll get to experience the collaboration routine as a student, discuss the impact, then review my collected data related to student perception and preference of the strategy. These strategies complement the recommended macro and micro moves for Building Thinking Classrooms while troubleshooting areas of concern.