A Year Without Worksheets

The Worksheet Rollercoaster 

My relationship with worksheets has had its ups and downs. I started my teaching profession in 2014 during my Teach For America placement in Jackson, Mississippi. In that setting, worksheets were good, even praised! I followed a strict “I do-we do-you do” model shifting to gradual independence for the student to complete the worksheet independently. It was passed to the front, graded, and returned. Expectations were clear and students were familiar with question types before the, dare I say it, state test. 

After my two years of service in the corps, I took my first international position in Beijing, China. Within a few years teaching in the Middle Years Programme, worksheets quickly became a dirty word. I saw them as beneath me, stereotypical. Not my math students! No! We are outside measuring and calculating and modernizing what it means to be a solid inquiry-based educator. I took great pride in this. 

Fast forward to 2023 and my family moved to Saudi Arabia and I found the same learning experiences that I previously prided myself in falling flat. Students were lost, misbehaving, and frustrated, and boy, so was I. There were significant gaps in their math education due to COVID and I couldn’t achieve the “transfer” I previously celebrated. I surrendered to the stack. Worksheet after worksheet, my students practiced every learning target and rusty numeracy skill until we could all do it in our sleep. I got my classes under control, my MAP scores up, and tightened my positive discipline skills, and “locked in” as the kids are saying these days. 

If you look at the data, my strategy worked. But, the thrill of lesson planning was gone, and my back reminded me daily as I crouched beside desk after desk answering the same question in twenty different ways. It’s time for a math teacher detox. I set off on a challenge at the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year to go an entire school year with not a single worksheet (kind of). 

The Detox Begins 

My first step was to replace any long stretches of traditional practice with activities that still built fluency, but through more engaging experiences. Card sorts, matching activities, and scavenger hunts became my besties. I should really buy stock in TeacherPayTeachers. Instead of writing the equation of a line 25 times, you need to match up 25 equations to their corresponding graphs, take a picture, and answer reflection questions about positive slopes and patterns you see. So on and so forth. I found myself hoping I’d get observed. 

We did a lot of scavenger hunts. Now, when you think about the concept of a scavenger hunt, it really is just a worksheet where there is one problem on each page and the pages are scattered about the classroom and hallways. Technically it’s simply routine practice but the vibe of the classroom is much more collaborative and forgiving. 

In October, I hit a bump in the road. It was time to teach graphing a linear function and I really, really needed a worksheet. I needed students to plot the points accurately and precisely. I needed students to use a ruler to form sharp, straight lines with nice, neat arrows on both ends. I needed them to do it 25 times with 25 different variations. “This is a vital skill that spirals all the way up into high school, I can’t neglect this,” I thought worriedly. So ok, maybe worksheets aren’t the enemy. Maybe only using worksheets is. So, I used a worksheet. Only eight problems to be fair and then we moved on to a more hands-on activity, but I felt so scandalous, like I was cheating on the SATs. Had I just failed? 

After a necessary time building fluency, I was bored again and so were my students. I renewed my vows to my earlier commitment and started letting the creative juices flow. One alternative experience I created due to my commitment to breaking up with worksheets was a service learning project creatively titled, Baby’s First Math. The math teacher detox was making my brain function differently. As I was cleaning out my two-year old twins’ bookshelf I found their high contrast cards from the days of tummy time and gummy smiles. “These are linear inequalities!” I proclaimed to the room of toddlers who did not share my celebration. From there, a project was born. Students used Desmos Calculator to create their own high contrast cards with lines and shading, using only linear algebra to generate a design. I collaborated with the early years program at my school and arranged my eighth graders to test their high contrast cards prototype with the two-year old class. Students planned games and activities to play with the littles. Fun was had and the learning was authentic. 

The experience continued, not one A4 paper in sight. Next, we took a field trip to a nearby Montessori school and repeated the experience with revised prototypes, all with the final goal – that we would send a reliable product of high contrast cards with a group of students travelling to visit and volunteer at a nursery school in Ghana this February. 

A Balanced Approach 

My "Year Without Worksheets" was a much needed detox from an over-reliance on repetitive skills to a transition to deeper critical thinking and collaborative skills. However, every now and again, I may need to whip out an old, trusty worksheet to get the job done, and that’s ok. I am still committed to intentionally redesigning my lessons into learning experiences that resonate with students. I’m happier on this journey and I think my students are too. This year without worksheets teaching me that what students really need isn’t less paper, it’s more purpose.

Lessons Learned

It’s now December. A "Year Without Worksheets" is nearly halfway complete. There have been many take-aways from this detox. My first major take-away is how movement has increased engagement. Eliminating long durations sitting at a desk and finishing a packet has opened new doors for students to engage with learning in a way that meets their developmental needs - for movement. Allowing a wiggle, students were more likely to remain engaged for the entirety of an experience. Windows became workspaces and students showed their thinking across the school with enthusiasm, signing little notes and names at the bottom of their process with pride. 

Also, data is supporting that this approach to building fluency without a worksheet is working. My school administers MAP tests, and, although standardized testing is not my favorite, it provides insight that my students are on the right track with their learning. Sixty-one percent of my students have already reached their growth goal, which they have a full calendar year to reach, between the September and December testing sessions. Additionally, my average RIT score in September was 238 (225 being the national norm for 50th percentile). The December results concluded an average RIT score of 244. More than half of my students reached this goal in just three months, and the overall improvement shows that this approach, though challenging at times, is driving real growth and deeper thinking.

I can’t wait to see what will continue to happen in this new, sans-worksheets world that I have entered. The math teacher detox continues… stay tuned.