Proving with Padlet: Can 18 Students Really Collaborate on One Problem at the Same Time?

Our technology integration coordinator, Meghan, sent out an email a couple of weeks ago about a site called Padlet. The idea of the site pretty simple: you make a padlet--really just a blank slate with a title-- and anybody can post something to it. 

The posts look something like post-it notes stuck to a wall. You can write directly onto these "post-it notes", or upload a file to them, such as a word doc or a jpg. The site is incredibly easy to use, and doesn't require posters to make an account or register. 

So I thought I would try it out with my 8th grade Geometry students... 

I broke the class into 6 groups of 3. I gave them a couple of postulates to work with, and told them that I'd like them to try and prove a list of theorems using those postulates as starting points. When a group thought they had a good proof for a theorem, they could post it to a padlet I created. After a group or two had posted, I told the rest of the groups that they could certainly look at other groups' proofs, BUT they had to read them critically: they were to look for missing steps, ways to improve the proof, etc. Once every group had posted a proof for a particular theorem, we would look at them all and see if we could come to a class consensus on the best way (or ways) to prove a particular theorem. 

Because Padlet is so easy to use and doesn't require an account, some groups started posting within just a few minutes. As they did, other groups found inspiration and started posting improvements and alterations a few minutes later. 

Here are the initial posts from the first theorem I asked them to prove: given that two lines are parallel, can you show that the alternate interior angles created by a transversal are congruent (the postulate they were given was that corresponding angles are congruent)? 

The students used OneNote to be able to write onto their touch screens with a stylus, and then took screen shots of their work and uploaded them as jpgs. The quality of the initial work really varies, but everyone had something to contribute. After we projected all of these onto the board and critiqued them as a class, the students were able to quickly come to a consensus about what they thought would be the "perfect" proof of the theorem. 

Meghan, our technology integration coordinator, shared an analogy with us about classroom tech: there's a "shallow end of the pool" and a "deep end of the pool". The "shallow end" represents using tech to do things you've already done, but in a more efficient way: maybe you give the kids a test online rather than on paper, or you've posted your homework assignment on a website rather than passing out hard copies of an assignment sheet. The "deep end" is when you are using tech to do something completely new--that is, tech has added actual pedagogical value, rather than just making your life more convenient or saving paper. 

I think the Padlet exercise may have gotten my class into the "deep end"... I've always been a fan of group work and collaboration in math class. But I've NEVER before had an entire class be able to work together on a problem in a meaningful way...in the past, collaboration ceased to be meaningful after the group got larger than 3 or 4. 

Now, though, this particular bit of tech made it possible for all 18 students in my C block to collaborate and contribute to a problem in a meaningful way...Everyone was engaged, and everyone's ideas made it into the conversation because Padlet allowed them to see what other groups were thinking in real time. 

So I'm filing this exercise under "use again in the near future"...