3 Must-Have Digital Tools to Engage your Students in Math

Hi, my name is Haley and I hate teaching math. There, I said it. The beauty and the curse of being an elementary teacher is that you have to teach all subjects, even the subjects you despise yourself. For me, that is math.

I have heard so many teachers throughout the years tell me that they excel at teaching the area that they struggled in as a student. Well, NOT ME! I struggled to learn math as a kid and I struggle to teach math as an educator. I loved reading and understood the subject easily and, (as you might know) I now love to teach reading!

Every year I struggle with engaging my students during math. Then the pandemic hit, and I was suddenly presented with a whole new issue: distance learning. Amazingly, I owe the pandemic a huge thank you for forcing me to re-examine and restructure my math instruction. Ever since the pandemic, I have found ways to teach math in the classroom with a much higher engagement level.

Jamboards

Google Jamboard is a tool I discovered out of necessity during the pandemic and has now become an almost daily tool in my classroom. Jamboard is completely free and easy to use! All you need is a Google account!

In Jamboard, students can manipulate different pieces of the “whiteboard”. They can draw, type, use sticky notes, and add pictures. The best thing is that students can collaborate on Jamboards simultaneously, or they can just view it if you want.

My biggest game changer has been using Jamboards for math. I am able to add manipulatives for them to use and I can also allow them to solve problems as a class! Two specific areas that I have found Jamboards helpful for are for counting coins and measurement.

Using Jamboard for Instruction

If you have an iPad, Jamboard can revolutionize your math instruction. I will put a Jamboard on the board, join the Jamboard on my iPad, and move around the room while writing on and manipulating the Jamboard. A blank Jamboard can be turned into anything you need! Some days I pre-populate them and other days I work on one as I go. However, it allows me to not be tied to my computer or my board, and I can move around the room and check on students while instructing.

I also love using a collaborative Jamboard to check for understanding during lessons. If you are lucky enough to have 1:1 technology in the classroom, you can have your kids log in to the same Jamboard you are displaying on the board, and have them write sticky notes or draw to show their understanding or contribute to the class discussion.

Here is a quick peek on how students can manipulate Jamboards to practice math skills.

Using Jamboard for Assignments and Assessments

I love using Jamboards to check for understanding. I have made many practice Jamboards that I assign to my students through Google Classroom to work on in class or as homework. If you would like more information on how to assign these Jamboards, check out my blog post here. Students can work on these Jamboards collaboratively on two separate computers, or they can do them individually.

Grab a free Jamboard coin matching game to try out with you own class!

As I talked about earlier, I already have created a host of Jamboards templates and games that I have used in my math instruction. You can grab the growing math bundle below! With each new math product I create, the product will be added to the bundle and the price will increase. However, if you grab the bundle now, all future Jamboard math products will be completely free for you to download in the future!

Pear Deck

Pear Deck is another app that was introduced to me during the crisis of pandemic distance teaching. This technology allows you to create interactive slides that students can manipulate. You can see their responses in real time which is an absolute game changer as far as gathering formative assessment data to drive your instruction. If you use Google Slides, then you will be completely amazed at how simple it is to integrate Pear Deck. Although I originally used this app for distance learning, I now use it in person to make sure I am getting 100% of engagement from my students.

To use Pear Deck, start by making a Google Slideshow to go along with whichever concept you are teaching. Recently my students were beginning their geometry unit. I created a Google slideshow that showed multiple shapes and explained their attributes.

Once your slideshow is completed, you can add the Peardeck add-on. You can open the add-on and easily insert interactive activities into the slides. This idea is best shown through video, so check out the video below to get a better visual of how easy Peardeck is to install and utilize.

This video shows you the basic ins and outs of Pear Deck in the classroom.

This is a fantastic video tutorial for how to create interactive slides with Pear Deck.

As I said earlier, I created a Pear Deck for my students to learn and practice geometry vocabulary. During the lesson, I would show a shape and have students type in how many sides, vertices, or angles they saw in the shape. They were doing a pretty great job and we were cruising through. At one point, I showed a rectangle and asked how angles were in the shape. To my surprise, half my class wrote 4 and half wrote 0. Again, I am getting these answers in real-time on my iPad as my students are answering. I was so stumped by these responses. I asked my second graders if anyone would be willing to defend their answer of 4 or 0. Many kids raised their hands. The first student said that there were 4 vertices, so there must be 4 angles. The second student said there were no angles, because there were only 4 right angles. I realized that they were seeing angles and right angles as two separate categories, instead of one being a subset of the other. What interesting thinking! Once I realized what the misconception was, I was able to correct it and explain that there are many types of angles, but they are all still considered angles.

This teachable moment could have been lost so quickly. Had my students been simply raising their hands, I might have called on one student and there was a 50/50 chance that that student would have answered with “4 angles”. I would have told them they were right, and we would have moved on, with me not even realizing that half of my class was confused. This is the beauty of instant data collection while teaching.

Also, it pretty much goes without saying that my students LOVE PEAR DECK! They groan now when we have a math lesson that does not include Pear Deck. I love that it gives all of my students the opportunity to participate throughout the entire lesson, as opposed to only a handful of students being called on.

Did I mention that Pear Deck is completely free? There is a paid version (and a free trial), but there is a lot you can do with the free account!

Kahoot

My third tip for engaging students in mathematics is one you might have heard of before, Kahoot. Kahoot is a free website (there is a paid version, but I have never felt the need for it) that allows students to log on to their devices and play a gameshow you have created for them.

Similarly to Pear Deck, Kahoot demands participation from the entire class on all questions, which obviously leads to high engagement levels. My students love Kahoot and ask to play it often!

Although you may have heard of Kahoot before, what you might not have realized is that there is an entire library of free Kahoots ready for you to use! You do not need to recreate the wheel. If you are thinking a Kahoot would help your students review a subject or skill, chances are someone else has likely thought the same thing and created one. Search their library! You can also make copies of many of these Kahoots, and tweak them to match your specific needs. Talk about a time saver!

Once again, the best way to understand this tool is to see it. Check out this tutorial video to see how it works!

To play Kahoot, your students will need devices of some sort, whether they be phones, tablets, or computers. The teacher needs to be able to project the Kahoot for the class to see.

In conclusion, although the pandemic brought a million struggles professionally and personally, I was definitely pushed out of my comfort zone and that has positively impacted my instruction. I was forced to use technology that I wouldn’t have tried otherwise, and I have now successfully integrated them into my in-person classroom. These tools and tricks have made my life easier and learning more fun for my students. I hope you try them out and enjoy them as much as my second graders and I do!

Good luck!