Do Teamwork Challenges Help Math Skills?
By Alfredo Figueroa and Peter Rios
In Algebra, we have been doing teamwork challenges once a week. In one challenge we worked together to build a tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows. For a couple weeks, we did yoga poses which helps keep us calm. We tried to stack cups with only a string and a rubber band. We tried to pick up round pasta off the table without using our hands but with an only a stick of spaghetti in our mouths. The marshmallow challenge and the cup challenge were our favorites because everybody helped each other.
During the challenge everybody says nice things to encourage each other. Some things we say to encourage each other are: “Good job!”; “You got this!”; “Let’s work together to get this done!”; and “Keep going!”. When we say these things during the challenges it helps us remember to say them to each other in class. The challenges also help us in class because we use teamwork to do the challenges and we need teamwork to do math problems together. The challenges also keep us on track because we finish all of our work so we can work on the challenge. During the challenges, we have practice working together and encouraging each other so we can do this when we are completing difficult math problems.
