Math Links for Week Ending Dec. 7th, 2018

Are you a math facilitator in Ontario? If so you may have been part of a virtual session this week with details on how to implement the Ministry of Ed's Focus on the Fundamentals campaign. If you missed it then you should check out their training site. There are a lot of good videos here to give more details on what the intent of this initiative is. Take a look.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://math.thelearningexchange.ca/training/

I don't think we can have enough visual representations of mathematics for students. This site from @BerkeleyEverett is new to me but I think it's been around for about a year. I think these kinds of visuals are not only good for students as they are learning these concepts for the first time but also for remediation in the later grades. Take a look.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://mathvisuals.wordpress.com/

This is an interesting take on how to deal with remediation with students from @cheesemonkeysf. Instead of working with students individually, turn the class into a community of learners with the same goal:

"I announced that our skills quiz for this unit was going to be a whole-class skills quiz, in which everybody would earn the AVERAGE SCORE of all individual quiz scores taken together."

She saw some great success. Have a read
Curriculum Tags: All
https://cheesemonkeysf.blogspot.com/2018/12/asking-different-question-manifesto-on.html

Here's one way that a college professor helps his students overcome math anxiety: He asks them to write about it. Thanks to @Taylored_Teach for pointing this one out.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51676/how-writing-can-help-you-overcome-math-anxiety


Math is everywhere. Even in the geometry of trying to describe smell
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unraveling-the-mathematics-of-smell/

I have continued to create videos on mini constructions using Desmos Geometry. This time I have added five more, each one about one of the different types of transformations that can be done. Check them all out at the link below
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://engaging-math.blogspot.com/p/desmos-geometry-videos.html

I made this quick video on creating a dynamic fraction or percent circle using a template. You can download the template here.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku6IaIAVYIM

Leave it to Jo Boaler to not only tell us how to make things engaging for students but also how to make math hated.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/joboaler/status/1070006500347666432

Are there some high school teachers out there who can make me feel better? Seeing my children's high school maths experience is so dispiriting. Tell me you are breaking this cycle? Policy makers need to support teachers in making urgent change. pic.twitter.com/FIHtwsIFiu

— Jo Boaler (@joboaler) December 4, 2018

Here is a simple activity for dealing with composite area.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/vaslona/status/1063504189190545408

The challenge: Write your name so that it covers an area of exactly 100 cm squared.

Love the different strategies students used here. E.g. Leia, who chose to make each letter 25 cm^2. Notice the revisions on the A.#mathchat #MTBoS Cc @PaiMath pic.twitter.com/FowEQoL4I6

— Ilona Vashchyshyn (@vaslona) November 16, 2018

Math Links for Week Ending Nov 30th, 2018

I dare you to watch this video and not have your curiosity piqued. In it @MrOrr_Geek and @MathletePearce take one for the team to explore proportional reasoning concepts. Get the full 3Act math task at the link below.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P, MAT1L, MAT2L
https://mrorr-isageek.com/chocolate-mania/

There has been a lot of talk in Ontario lately about going back to basics. And although I don't think we have lost the basics (and what the basics actually are is a discussion on its own), I do think there is no harm in practicing basic skills beyond the grades that they are taught. In this case, I took a cue from @gfletchy who has a set of subitizing multiplication cards and built a few different versions of these array multiplication cards. This way we can continue to practice mental multiplication without resorting to memorization techniques. With these cards students can practice multiplication up to 12x12.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P, MAT1L, MAT2L
http://engaging-math.blogspot.com/2018/11/array-multiplication-cards.html

It's no surprise that I am big fan of @pgliljedahl's ideas about the Thinking Classroom. Some of the things that still perplex me are things like assessment and how to properly manage flow. Another thing is the skill of helping students take notes. In this post @PaiMath does a great job outlining what note taking looks like in the Thinking Classroom. This is part one so I assume part two will be on the way.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://intersectpai.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-thinking-classroom-note-taking-part.html

Thanks for pointing this out @ddmeyer
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/ddmeyer/status/1067989653003788289

"This is one of the most important principles in the whole of the art of teaching."#iteachmath /via @letsplaymath pic.twitter.com/9Az9dqAaHT

— Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) November 29, 2018

A few weeks ago we hosted the OAME Leadership conference in Windsor. Here is a nice summary from @MarkChubb3 that does a nice job of connecting to the Ontario math curriculum processes of Reasoning & Proving.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://buildingmathematicians.wordpress.com/2018/11/14/reasoning-proving/



Continuing the conversation about math for math's sake, @mathgarden has this post on Medium. One thing I really like is the play aspect of how he dealt with math at home with his daughter. I feel like this is the kind of homework that our kids need. Just to tinker with math.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://medium.com/@sunilsingh_42118/mathematics-waits-for-everyone-but-few-wait-for-mathematics-7095c86cda70

I think that sometimes probability gets glossed over when, in fact, I think we need to look deeper at probability as it is one of those mathematical concepts that we want our our students to have a good grasp of. How else are we to teach them of the perils of gambling and lotteries. That all being said, @mathisvisual has tried to demystify theoretical probability in this video. Go to the link below for the full breakdown.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://mathisvisual.com/probability/

If you are doing patterning and you are looking for some non mathematical patterns to have some fun with your kids with, then @Numberphile has you covered.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeGSQggDkxI

It's @DonFraser9 doing what he does best. Mixing a bit of humour and math
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/DonFraser9/status/1068685234487488512

Love the OPEN questions... Oh! Is this too OPEN for you? #MTBoS ⁦@robertkaplinsky⁩ ⁦@LareRomano⁩ ⁦@Mathgarden⁩ ⁦@MathletePearce⁩ ⁦@MrOrr_geek⁩ ⁦@MatthewOldridge⁩ ⁦@davidpetro314⁩ ⁦@paul_math⁩ ⁦@MrAllenEdu⁩ ⁦@ddmeyer⁩ pic.twitter.com/77FnaYeoO7

— Don Fraser (@DonFraser9) December 1, 2018

Math Links for Week Ending Nov. 23rd, 2018

This week I was asked to do a day of math activities for grade 7&8 students in a school. I wanted to do activities that had definite mathematical connections but were also fun and engaging. as it turned out all I had to do was look to @DavidButlerUoA's site. He often runs these sessions called 100 Factorial and these seemed like just the kind of thing to do with these students. We did Body Scale Prime Climb (thanks to @MathforLove), Panda Squares and Quarter the Cross. But you should check out all of his 100 Factorial ideas at the link below.You (and your students) won't be disappointed.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://blogs.adelaide.edu.au/maths-learning/category/one-hundred-factorial/

Thanks to @DavidKButlerUoA I did a #100factorial session with @stjwecdsb gr7&8 stds using Panda Squares, Quarter the Cross and Body Scale #PrimeClimb (thx @MathforLove ) https://t.co/dFlueGIW4Q #mathchat #mtbos #iteachmath pic.twitter.com/V2s4x2mMD9

— David Petro (@davidpetro314) November 20, 2018

While I was looking for activities with my grade 7&8 students I came across this nice set of activities from @nomad_penguin on classifying quadrilaterals. From simple classifying to sorting to playing guess who (and other stuff). Have fun.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
 https://amiealbrecht.com/2017/10/03/a-lesson-plan-for-quadrilaterals/






I created this activity for exploring the nature of the ambiguous case for sine law. It uses some of the Desmos geometry tools but also in the end, it also uses Challenge Creator where students create their own challenges for the rest of their classmates. This is a really good activity to have students practice the sine law.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCT4C
http://engaging-math.blogspot.com/p/desmos-activities_10.html




When I was fiddling around with solutions to Quarter the Cross, I created this dynamic sketch dealing with the area of triangles. When I first looked at it, I was surprised at how the areas stayed similar. It took me a little thinking to figure out why this happens. You can play around with the dynamic sketch at the link below.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://www.desmos.com/geometry/kuwxwcvcbg







Here's a relatively simple intro to similar triangles from @marybourassa. The thing I like about this is that it connects similar triangles to Pythagorean theorem to trig ratios. It's not that long but would be a good addition to any class doing spiralling.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P
http://marybourassa.blogspot.com/2018/11/similar-triangles-introduction.html

This week we had the Ontario government had a virtual town hall on the current state of education. And @msbjacobs was there to live Tweet it. Its pretty interesting and I'm glad that he did it. Follow the whole set of Tweets here by clicking through on the link.
Curriculum Tags:All
https://twitter.com/msbjacobs/status/1065417401062187008

About to start the telephone Town Hall meeting for Education in Ontario. Will try to live tweet.

— Michael Jacobs (@msbjacobs) November 22, 2018

Are you interested in learning how to make dynamic constructions? Using Desmos Geometry, I started creating this one minute videos to show how to do some simple constructions. One of them is below but click on the link to see them all.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://engaging-math.blogspot.com/p/desmos-geometry-videos.html

Here's a cool property: Square any prime number and the answer is 1 more than a multiple of 24. So you could easily connect this to any sort of calculation practice but even better, if you are doing anything with expanding binomials, this might be an interesting context to work in that area.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM2D, MFM2P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMkIiFs35HQ

I wanted to show a few more of the Quarter the Cross solutions that we saw this week.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/davidpetro314/status/1064969713208446978

Some other good ones pic.twitter.com/VgZdpNKSND

— David Petro (@davidpetro314) November 20, 2018

Math Links for Week Ending Nov. 16th, 2018

So if you are like me, you consider yourself a "Sketchhead". That is, someone who builds in Geometer's Sketchpad. GSP has fallen by the wayside more recently but an online beta-test version of GSP has just been released for public consumption. You can use most of the constructions tools that you are used to having and the ability to upload and download the new GSP files (.json). You can create GSP files with custom tool sets and make them available for student use. There is also a way to upload multiple student files to one page for viewing. Thanks to @dpscher for pointing this out. Daniel says that more features and improved functionality are on the roadmap for Web Sketchpad.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://geometricfunctions.org/fc/tools/

This new activity from @desmos combines some of the best pedagogical and technological features they have. I think most of us can agree that kids love marbleslides. This new activity for linear relations is like marbleslides but instead of collecting stars with the marbles, they are collecting coins. And one of the things that, I think, make it better than marbleslides is that when typing an equation in marbleslides, your equation starts to graph as soon as you type it. So you can see mistakes happening on the fly. This makes it a bit easier to guess without knowing the math. Here you have to type the equation and submit it before you see it and it keeps track of the number of trials you use. Ending the activity off is a Challenge Creator so kids can create their own challenge to share with the rest of the class. Check it out.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM2P
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/5bcdf906c1d7660b58d8b866

I had a friend of mine do a guest post on my Found Data blog. In it @virgonomic takes some data from t-shirt sales and designs from Notre Dame and collects it for analysis. It's definitely a "dirty" set of data but mostly linear and good for doing some interesting interpolating.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://found-data.blogspot.com/2018/11/notre-dame-university-shirt.html

I have finally gotten around to creating a Desmos activity using Challenge Creator. in this case it's for students to practice the sine law while also investigating the ambiguous case. Students first investigate and then do the practice.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCT4C
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/5beceb2ea437fd5fb1ae49d0




In this post, @mathletepearce does a good job of taking a task and showing how it could be done to different depths from grade 1 all the way to grade 7. He goes in detail on the proportional reasoning and gives us examples of student work and thinking along the way.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7
https://tapintoteenminds.com/proportional-relationships-developmentally/

A neat little 3Act task from @MrOrr_Geek dealing with least common multiples. What do you notice and wonder after this first task? Follow the link for the entire task.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://mrorr-isageek.com/hour-glass-multiples/

I have mentioned @MonaChalabi before. She is the data scientist at the Guardian and does some interesting visualizations of data. Here's a series on the participation of people of colour in outdoor sports. 

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqKrV4gnVcM/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

View this post on Instagram

My family have always thought sports are pointless and outdoor sports are just plain weird. So these numbers surprised me: on average, people of color are 8% more likely than white people to have participated in outdoor sports in the past year. The data comes from Canada and I showed the breakdown here for cycling, hiking, snowsports and climbing (each one in a different season!). Source: Environics survey for MEC Outdoors, 2018 #datasketch #outdoorsports

A post shared by Mona Chalabi (@monachalabi) on Nov 14, 2018 at 8:05am PST

Math Links for Week Ending Nov. 9th, 2017

I was fortunate enough to help organize this year's OAME Leadership conference in locally here in Windsor. We had three keynotes (@ddmeyer, @ctfosnot, @gfletchy) and a bunch of breakout sessions over a day and a half. If you are interested here is the website (which will eventually have links from many of presentations). The theme was Learning in the 21st Century and we had different perspectives on how that can be done for teachers and students. Here is the feed from the hashtag #OAMELead. There were so many quotable lines (even one by me) that I tried to compile some of them  below. Thanks to all those who filled the "back channel" (just a few from @ddmeyer, @markchubb3, @hkodai, @mrbinfeild).
Curriculum Tags:All
bit.ly/OAMELead2018

Hey it’s @ddmeyer speaking to a full house at the @OAMEcounts #OAMELead ership conference pic.twitter.com/bPQdPTrW1g

— David Petro (@davidpetro314) November 9, 2018

I brought a pile of games to the OAME Leadership conference to play in the evening and other people started to bring up other puzzles. I have to check these and you should too.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/YohakuPuzzle

Just found out about these amazing puzzles and they’re blowing my mind! Check it out @YohakuPuzzle @davidpetro314 @MathletePearce @MrOrr_geek #OAMELead thanks @Mr_Whitson for sharing! pic.twitter.com/vGZd3iJ87E

— Jessica Bodnar (@jessica_bodnar) November 9, 2018

There is definitely a math question in here. What question will you ask?
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/mrgerberd/status/1059091555129192449

Hey math friends! Passing through the warehouse museum that we call Costco and saw this in their kitchen. Any ideas for different math problems here? @ddmeyer @robertkaplinsky @DoctorMatHney @chrissybug24 @ohioctm pic.twitter.com/GtRKGZxvf0

— Davis Gerber (@mrgerberd) November 4, 2018

From @ddmeyer's keynote at #OAMELead. The question is: "What is the area of the shaded region?" Do this with a group of students or teachers to see the surprise. The connection could be calculating slope or rates of change on this one but I say that with no explanation :-)

Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1D

https://twitter.com/MarkChubb3/status/1060729482372435968

@ddmeyer blowing our minds with this problem:

(I didn’t get the same answer as @MrBinfield or @TeatherBoard )#oamelead #MTBoS #ITeachMath pic.twitter.com/EpEKJkTbmh

— Mark Chubb (@MarkChubb3) November 9, 2018

Check out this fraction activity from just a few decades ago

Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8

https://twitter.com/mathsjem/status/1059513603680800769

Fractions activity from ‘Fundamental Arithmetic’, P B Ballard. Published late 1920s. #mathschat #teammaths pic.twitter.com/O9ZJ73sJ2M

— Jo Morgan (@mathsjem) November 5, 2018

Need a real box plot? What I can't tell is whether this was taken on the inside and the box plot was drawn on the window or just drawn digitally on the image. I hope its the former

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

https://twitter.com/AnkerMath/status/1060735881382780928

Chalked a number line from 57" to 74". Students stood on their height line. I took a class photo to show how clustered data affects the way a boxplot looks! #mtbos #statschat pic.twitter.com/ED6FJn9JPP

— Julia Anker 🌹 (@AnkerMath) November 9, 2018

Some sketchnotes from @RiversoMaria on the OAME Leadership Keynotes and a couple of the breakouts. 

Curriculum Tags: All

https://twitter.com/RiversoMaria/status/1060753949437976576

Awesome to hear from @ddmeyer tonight @OAMEcounts's Leadership conference. It's about creating surprise. #OAMELead pic.twitter.com/JdloJpY5Iw

— Maria Riverso (@RiversoMaria) November 9, 2018

https://twitter.com/RiversoMaria/status/1060942897216925697

Started our day w/ @ctfosnot's keynote at #OAMElead. "We need powerful models for change". 6 criteria where "passionate attention drives our choices" pic.twitter.com/in1g6ihfPd

— Maria Riverso (@RiversoMaria) November 9, 2018

https://twitter.com/RiversoMaria/status/1060944113854545921

With @ddmeyer exploring #Desmos #OAMElead "There r ways of teaching math that hurt kids...There's tech that hurts math & hurts kids." Thinking abt teacher moves as we consider: How can tech help & hurt a S's math education?" pic.twitter.com/0rh8ZqpMwK

— Maria Riverso (@RiversoMaria) November 9, 2018

https://twitter.com/RiversoMaria/status/1060988389783191553

The power of conferring with young mathematicians at work w/ @ctfosnot at #OAMELead. 💭 Are you focused on fixing the math OR supporting the development of a mathematician? pic.twitter.com/AinYpcQoen

— Maria Riverso (@RiversoMaria) November 9, 2018

https://twitter.com/RiversoMaria/status/1060986518905479168

Grateful for the learning opportunities at #OAMELead. Focused on sense-making & development over time w/ @gfletchy in his awesome session! "You gotta know what u'r looking for...Intention is necessary to move student thinking forward." Thank you Graham! pic.twitter.com/Vesk598a3h

— Maria Riverso (@RiversoMaria) November 9, 2018

https://twitter.com/RiversoMaria/status/1061024621514784768

@gfletchy bringing this year's #OAMELead leadership conference to a close w/ his keynote address. 2 words to think abt: INTENTIONAL and PURPOSEFUL. Thank you @OAMEcounts for a GREAT conference! #iteachmath pic.twitter.com/hPe2CiJGYr

— Maria Riverso (@RiversoMaria) November 9, 2018

Math Links for Week Ending Nov. 2nd, 2018

Hey, I am helping out with a Twitter chat on Tuesday night at 9pm EST as part of the #esc11math monthly chat. I am going to try to do a combination Twitter chat and live @Desmos activity on some simple geometry problems. So come out and try a bit of dynamic geometry using @Desmos. How do you participate in a Twitter chat, you ask? To be honest, despite being on Twitter for 9 years, I've never participated. My thinking is that the best way is to follow their hashtag and see the conversation streaming. Then if you want to participate, make sure you include the chat hashtag in your Tweet.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/hashtag/esc11math?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash

And yet another Ontario teacher has published a book. This time it's @matthewoldridge with "Teaching Mathematics through Problem Solving". I like the idea that it looks at problem solving by showing that mathematics can be playful and engaging. Check it out while quantities last.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.amazon.ca/Teaching-Mathematics-through-Problem-Solving-Classrooms/dp/147584333X





This week I saw the culmination of an activity I created with @tomsich83 to have students use TI CBRs and Lego EV3 robots to recreate distance time graphs as part of their grade 9 STEM class. Students create an EV3 robot that will carry the CBR and then have to program it to match various distance time graphs. Get the handout at the link below.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NIa-W5zcW_MihuO8N_0kGYxol3L4gCLsHb6sbCFPPVA/edit

If you have ever used the site Open Middle, you know how good these questions are for going deeper on simple knowledge based questions. Here @AliceKeeler has a Google Slides template to use when working with this particular open middle problem dealing with equivalent fractions.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://alicekeeler.com/2018/10/21/open-middle-equivalent-fractions-activity/

It's always good to find resources on probability that connect to real things that people experience. In this case it's the Monopoly game at McDonalds here in Canada. Specifically, it starts with a piece about some of the fraud associated with the game and ends with a statistician describing the real odds of winning. Thanks to Lorna Baltrusuinas for this one.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://theconversation.com/mcdonalds-monopoly-a-statistician-explains-the-real-odds-of-winning-106051

In this post @MrOrr_Geek tackles the myth of planning lessons in isolation. I don't think that he is suggesting that teachers don't plan in isolation but instead that some of the best lessons aren't. Collaboration is the key and that collaboration seems to be much easier now than ever before with tools like Twitter, blogs and email. You no longer need to physically be in the same room (or the same city) to collaborate. Check out his evidence (from himself and other Ontario educators) and tips at his post below.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://mrorr-isageek.com/how-we-can-avoid-a-major-lesson-planning-misconception/

Another video from @MathIsVisual on visualizing mean. This time with larger numbers. Click on the link, below, for the full play by play on how to use it.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://mathisvisual.com/mean-part2/

There are a lot of these videos online (and I love every one). None the less here's another plan landing in a crosswind. Perfect for talking about addition of vectors.
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9ePtRpyyks

Here's a costume idea that you can "steal" for next year.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U
https://twitter.com/LukeSelfwalker/status/1056271693419823104

Be on the look out for this identity thief. You better hide your trig. #mathoween pic.twitter.com/XGCXOotiYT

— Luke Walsh (@LukeSelfwalker) October 27, 2018

It's not exactly hard data but it could be real
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://twitter.com/bobloch/status/1053026824299646978

The optimal date for purchasing Halloween candy is coming soon. #statschat pic.twitter.com/IddwbzELN9

— Bob Lochel (@bobloch) October 18, 2018

Halloween may be over but you might want to put this activity for converting between fractions and decimals in your back pocket for next year.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://twitter.com/MrNiksMathClass/status/1057223395044134914

Teachers, here is an activity where students work on changing fractions into decimal numbers. Have students work in pairs matching and connecting fractions to their decimal equivalents. It is not a race. Happy Halloween Everyone! #tvdsbmath #iteachmath pic.twitter.com/8l9A4lLEvv

— Math with P. Nik (@MrNiksMathClass) October 30, 2018

This kind of dynamic tiling is pretty cool
Curriculum Tags: Gr7
https://twitter.com/christianp/status/1055846712714125312

Inspired by an article in @chalkdustmag, I wrote code to generate Truchet tiles for any even number of sides. Then I looked up which tilings of even-sided polygons exist, and here we are: https://t.co/QuhIHk7nUI pic.twitter.com/s80y2zYBWn

— Christian Lawson-Perfect (@christianp) October 26, 2018