This month on The Social Studies Show on EduProtocols Plus, Adam and I will be talking about one of our favorite EduProtocols — the Number Mania lesson frame. Our show takes place on the third Thursday of every month at 6 pm Pacific time. On March 16, 2023, we will be broadcasting live from Spring CUE (and Adam’s basement).

I see teachers sharing Number Mania on social media frequently. I worry that too many use it as a one-and-done lesson. Good infographics need an audience and some analysis. Two of my favorite extension activities with this EduProtocol are the self-assessment and the GIST statement. This student used the Panama Canal lesson I did for the CLIC project. The next day, they were given this debriefing document and asked to reflect on how they did. After they have completed a gallery walk, students are usually pretty critical of themselves. Asking them what they would do differently helps them prepare for the next project with confidence.

If your students are tired of debriefing and reflecting, then I suggest you teach them the GIST strategy. Simply ask them to select the five most important facts from their Number Mania and write one sentence for each fact. If the resulting paragraph tells the reader the five Ws and one H (who, what, when, where, why & how) — then they have created an infographic that captured the main idea of the reading. A more advanced synthesis task is pictured below.

We look forward to seeing you on EduProtocols Plus to learn how you have used Number Mania to replace boring lectures and give your students practice with numeracy and digital literacy.

If you need more examples of how to use Number Mania in the Social Studies classroom, rush on over to Amazon and put our book in your cart. It’s full of ideas for using Number Mania as formative or summative assessments.