I’ve been faithfully naming the “Learning Goal” with each class for several years now.
And frankly, it doesn’t inspire.
Instead of (actually, in addition to) this, I’ve added the Daily Doozy to my pre-lesson routine.
After the Goal of the Day, I show them this slide for about 2 seconds. Long enough to play this song:
…then I quickly move on. They don’t have enough time to try it, just enough time to whet their appetite for some Algebra.
(Also, I don’t want the Honors students to finish it and be bored the rest of the period.)
Then, after we’ve factored, noted, practiced, and learned, I go back to that slide, and they have time to tackle the Daily Doozy…
… and I play the final minute of this song:
I added that last line to the slide because I had 4 or 5 students who finished the Daily Doozy and proclaim, “That was easy!” I reminded them that it probably isn’t easy for all the students. Instead, they can proclaim, “My, what an appropriate challenge!”
UPDATE 17 April 2013: Per Dan’s request, here are a few more.
This is great. I’m always looking for ways to incorporate musical cues and daily agenda items in a more interesting way. Thanks for sharing.
What are your first 20 minutes of rountine that remain the same daily? Also what are some of your musical cues that you regularly use?
Hi MATT,
Excuse my post below as I arrived on a link from Dan Meyer’s site. Two excellent sites to explore. Thank you.
Hi Dan,
Thanks for this. I am new here and busy looking for connections between your awesomeness and my third grade classroom. Just beginning to explore the site and I thank you.
I love this! I am a first year teacher and I’ve given up on posting the objective my district doesn’t require it and I get a lot of blank faces when I talk about the objective before class, but I will be trying this. I love the way it connects the end to of the lesson to the beginning and the fact that it feeds off a kids inquisitive reaction to being challenged.
nice work with the Daily Doozy, song, etc. Its nice to see other people breaking from boring and thoughtless class intros!
Awesome stuff! keep up the great work!
I like this. I can see coming back to it as an exit ticket or something like that also – helping to make those last minutes of a class as productive as possible.
This post should have a zillion comments saying a) there’s a pretty profound pedagogical shift from “daily standard” to “daily doozy” and b) great work, Matt. I added you and your post to a talk I’m giving this weekend. More people need to see this thing.