Mathsational

The origins of Barbie Bungee seem to be unknown, at least according to this twitter conversation. Looking for the earliest known copyright on Barbie Bungee. WHO INVENTED THIS THING?! https://t.co/CIayCEHJVC — Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) October 21, 2015 I've seen it done in classrooms since I started teaching circa 2004, however, advancements in technology have made it soooo much more fun.  Many students have smartphones capable of taking slow motion video which adds to the engagement. Here is what I did on my most recent go-round. I did this lesson with a class called Survey of Math.  It is our remediation class for students who did not pass our state exam on algebra 1.  Most of the students seemed to enjoy it, especially the end when they dropped their dolls. This group even wanted to try to get closer to the floor and wanted to add the new data point and recalculate their regression line. Some of the interesting things that happene...

This lesson may not make sense to some of you, especially if you do not know me or what a hybrid classroom looks like.  You can read more about my hybrid classroom on the Hybrid Learning and MTSD Training – Hybrid Learning tabs of my blog. The short version of this information is that my students learn by traveling through 4 stations over a period of 2 days.  The first day consists of a 5 minute warm-up, two 20 minute stations and a 5 minute closure activity (usually an exit ticket).  The second day consists of a 5 minute warm-up, one 20 minute station, one 20 minute whole group activity and a 5 minute closure activity.  Sometimes the whole group activity is a lecture, sometimes it is a quiz, and other times it is a group work assignment or project.  The warm-ups and exit tickets might be review of a specific skill or a fun MTBoS warm-up.  Check out the MTBoS Resources tab above for more information. The first of the 3 stations is the indepen...

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...

The only 'bad' thing about the MTBoS might be that there is soooo much out there and it can be hard to keep up with it all.  OK, really it is impossible to keep up with it all.  Here are some of my go to resources that I search when I have a lesson coming up but I don't have anything interesting to do with students on that particular topic. Common Core Problem Based Curriculum Maps - Geoff Krall of Emergent Math has organized thousands of problem based tasks.  He has sorted them by grade level, Common Core standard, and subject.  Seriously, so much good stuff that my mind explodes every time I visit the page. Desmos Activities - Interesting activities that are ready to use in your classroom.  Until recently there were only a few activities posted, all of high quality of course.  Lately however, new activities are being posted more often. Yay! The Math Projects Journal Lessons/Curriculum Maps - Chris Shore has organized projects for middle...

Reason and Wonder is great resource for engaging lessons.  Each lesson starts with an interesting image.  Students are asked what they notice about the image and what they wonder about the image.  Michael Fenton, writes the lessons in such a way as to promote student curiosity and the tasks are inherently interesting. These follow a 3-act set up in which the teacher allows students to generate questions about the topic.  The question to be explored is predetermined, but students will likely ask the desired question if they are encouraged to ask as many questions as they can. The thing I like best about Michael's lessons is that they are classroom ready.  Many of the other 3-act lesson collections are great too, but these are very complete with lots of media files, desmos files, and presentation slides. I have only tried the Charge!  lesson in my classroom so far, but I look forward to exploring more of Michael's lessons.