Mathsational

What makes a rich task?  It needs to be accessible to many students (have a low floor) yet offer enough extension to challenge advanced learners (have a high ceiling).  Often, the task will have some sort of context or application.  The task should be open enough that students could solve the problem in several ways and may even be able to come up with follow-up questions.  The task may be solvable in an eloquent stream lined way and may be solved in unusual and creative ways.  The task should encourage collaboration.  It might result in a discovery of a new concept and it should certainly be a positive experience for students. One of my favorite resources for rich tasks is the Mathematics Assessment Project.  I wrote about it here about a year ago. Another source that I like, but have not used quite as extensively as MAP is Illustrative Mathematics.  They offer course blueprints aligned with the national Common Core standards.  Here is t...

Engagement in Algebra 2 can be tough.  The scope and sequence is brutal, even for me as someone who really enjoys math.  I wrote about the objectives of my algebra 2 class here .  Seriously, if you have a great application project or activity for the following, please let me know: multiplying/dividing polynomials (long division), working with radical and complex numbers, rational functions, polynomial functions, conic sections, inverse functions, sequences and series & truth tables.  Ugh, I'm bored just typing that list of unbearable content. So, what I attempt to do is 1) gamify as much as I can and 2) Kagan the rest. I wrote several posts about the games that I try to incorporate: Dice Breakout Edu Chains Tarsia Board Games My Ship Sails Color by Number Old Maid TIC TAC TOE and Go Fish Rummy For more info on Kagan strategies you can start here .  Kagan strategies are methods of having students work collaboratively.  Each person ha...

Oh how I wish I could be seriously planning for my first few days of classes.  I just got summoned to district jury duty.  This will be the fourth time that I have had jury duty.  Last year, I actually got called to local court twice in five months.  I was not all that worried about the second call because I know I was excused for a year.  When I called to let them know that I had just served, the lady on the phone was surprised to find that my name was in the pool three times.  I'm under the impression she fixed that, but who knows.  I wrote to the court to request a postponement until next summer.  At the very least, any time that is not during the first few days of school.  I certainly don't want to leave a substitute in charge of building a classroom culture for me during those very important first few days of class. I also have a jam packed curriculum, especially in algebra 2.  This past year, I messed up with pacing and had ...

Julie at I Speak Math  has been kind enough to organize a group of algebra 2 teachers on twitter.  You are welcome to join us by posting to the hashtag and blogging once per month or so about your algebra 2 class.  It was recommended that our first post consist of our scope and sequence so that we can determine which teachers might be teaching similar topics at the same time.  Hopefully this will aide in collaboration.  I am using standards based grading.  I number my objects as #.#  The first number is the unit number and the second number is the objective number within that unit.  The first year I did this, I just numbered from about 1 to 130.  It made making changes to the list more difficult.  Now when I need to add or subtract a topic, I don't need to renumber all of the objectives, just the ones in the same unit. Here is my list.  Notice the complete absence of probability, data analysis and matrices :(  I do need ...

The next practice structure that I'd like to share is having kids play board games.  This is just another alternative to a worksheet.  I take the problems from a practice worksheet and put them onto powerpoint slides, print them in landscape four to a slide, and cut the printed page into quarters with one problem per piece. For the board games, I have purchased a few cheap childhood games from stores like 5 below or walmart.  Right now I have Candy Land, Trouble and Snakes & Ladders.  You can also find lots of free printable game boards through a quick google search.  I have printed some of these out in color and laminated them to be used multiple times. For accountability, I usually just give the students a place to record their work.  I also try to provide an answer key so that students can check their work. In general I have all students try the same problem at the same time.  Then they check the answer and anyone that got the proble...

The next practice structure I'd like to share is a card game called My Ship Sails.  I had never played this game as a child, but came across it while looking for ways to gamify my classroom more.   Here is a link on how to play the traditional game. This game would work well for any topic where kids need to be able to categorize or differentiate similar concepts.  Traditionally, there are four suits in a deck of cards, but I suppose you could create a game with three or five suits just as easily. Basically, after dealing the cards, the idea is for kids to pass one card to the left while at the same time receiving one card from the player to their right.  The object of the game is to collect all cards with the same suit/type/category. Here are two examples that I recently created for next year. This game is for geometry.  Each card has a conditional statement and then one of the following:  the hypothesis, the conclusion, a counterexample, or the conv...

Another practice structure that I use about once per chapter is color-by-number.  I typically find the coloring pages on Pinterest.   Here is the board that I have been using to collect images for future activities. I usually choose with the problems by using Kuta software or by pulling from a pre-existing worksheet. I number the problems to match the numbers in the color-by-number picture.  Then I match the answers to the appropriate color.  Students solve each problem, locate the matching answer and color the numbers in the picture with that matching color. Somewhat surprisingly, these activities are well liked by my students.  If too much time passes, they ask about when we will do another.  I personally like the pictures that you can not identify until after they are colored, but my students seem to prefer cartoon characters. Here is one example that I used last year to have students practice factoring trinomials in quadratic form. Here is...

My goal during the summer is to blog at least once a week.  I've failed pretty miserably with this so far this year.  One of my goals was to blog about my favorite practice structures.  Let's be honest, a lot of the content in high school math is either inapplicable (I'm looking at you polynomial long division) or requires lots of practice to build fluency.  So, although I do like to try to do one project with honest to goodness real world application for each unit or marking period, I still need something engaging to do with kids to help them practice. The practice structure that I am sharing today is Old Maid. I love having my kids practice the most basic skills (ones that require little to no writing) by playing card games.  One sad side note is that I usually need to give directions on how to play these games because apparently, parents don't play games with their kids anymore. So, I just now created a new version of Old Maid for my first unit in algeb...

I was inspired by  @samjshah  to create an activity using logarithms and earthquakes for my algebra 2 classes.  Sam wrote about Earthquakes, Richter Scale, and Logarithms here . I did a little googling and ended up with this activity.  I still had some questions, so I emailed USGS and got a quick and through reply.  The reply resulted in this activity.  I have not tried it with students yet, but I'm really excited to do so next year.  Please feel free to check it out and give me feedback before I try it in the classroom. Here is the student document if you'd like to use it. Enjoy.

Recently, my honors algebra 2 class studied radicals.  Among other things, we needed to build fluency in using operations and using radicals to solve equations.  Here are a few of the resources that students used during class to practice. Simplifying radicals board game:   I can not remember where I got this board game template.  At one time, I googled something  like “free printable board games” and downloaded a bunch of them to use once each unit.  In general, I print some practice problems using Kuta Software and cut up the worksheet to make problem cards.  I print and laminate the board game to use year after year.  I use dice and bingo counters that I purchased online.  This is a simple alternative to a worksheet that the kids always seem to enjoy.  The board games work best when the problems are quick.  The game part is not fun if the kids can only complete 2-3 problems and don’t actually get to move their gam...

One of my favorite resources is the  Mathematics Assessment Project .  These are scripted lessons, which at first was off-putting to me.  However, once I implemented a few lessons (with modifications as I saw fit), I accepted them as exemplary lessons.   While I don't always follow the script, I do believe that the lessons have been vetted and shown to be well thought out.  I like the script as a starting point and I like having a model to work with.  I especially like the common misconceptions and the suggested questions that could be posed to students. Here are two of the most recent lessons that I have used in my classroom. Defining lines by points, slopes, and equations My favorite part of many of these lessons is the collaborative section.  This lesson contains a matching activity where various information is missing from some of the pairs.  Students can more easily match the pairs with all the information given and then expand t...

Here are two more activities that I have tried in class recently. Linear Inequality TIC-TAC-TOE: I borrowed this activity from @MathBerts and adjusted the directions to make it work in my classroom.  Since I teach in a hybrid/station based classroom, students need to be able to complete their assignments without a teacher leading the activity.  Most of my students enjoyed the activity.  I had just one problem in that I had small groups of kids all using the same game board.  I would recommend possibly copying each board on a different color of paper to alleviate this issue. Domain and Range Go Fish: This activity is a real winner.  The kids LOVED it.  I can't explain it, but every time we play go fish, they go nuts (in a good, on task, highly engaged sort of way).  Shockingly, the first time we play Go Fish, I have to do a mini-lesson on how to play.  Kids can be so deprived these days :(  This activity really helped my...