Saturday, April 9, 2016

Math Links for Week Ending April 8th, 2016

We just added a continuum activity for calculating rates of change via graphs to our blog. A continuum is a mechanism where students have the option to start at different places (based on their current ability) and the problem become gradually more difficult or complex. In this case the given information on the graph dwindles as they go through the levels. We have an analog version (with graphs printed on card stock) where kids check their answers with UV "magic" pens and an Explain Everything version if you have iPads.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P
http://engaging-math.blogspot.ca/2016/04/rate-of-change-continuum.html

Currently the @Desmos Des-Man activity is down for maintenance. But there are several others made with activity builder that have stepped up to take it's place. I saw @mathycathy's and loved how simple and to the point it was. But for grade 9 students in Ontario, they haven't seen inequalities or non linear functions yet. So, because you can now edit public Desmos activities now, I changed her's so it only expected students to use linear functions and gave them a little lesson on inequalities. It is so awesome not to have to start from scratch.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, MFM2P
Original: https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/....
Modified: https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/....

Certainly coding is in vogue now. Too bad it has taken so long. Computer science has been in the curriculum for decades but we are now seeing quite a surge in it's uptake. I think that it is pretty easy to get kids into it if doing the right thing. Like for instance I was at the TVDSB STEAM conference today and saw a lot of cool coding activities. Stuff that made me want to keep hammering through the code. From programming an Arduino to light some LEDs or using Chitibitronics to create a circuit or my favourite, programming a Sphero to navigate a maze (see some of my code in this image and here are the results - listen to the math talk). The great thing about all of these is the amount of math that is needed to get the job done. In this case the coding is the reason to do the math and the reason to do the coding is moving this cool sphere. End result, kids are engaged. For more on that, including a neat idea to incorporate order of operations into coding is this recent post from @MrSoClassroom.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://mrsoclassroom.blogspot.ca/2016/04/using-coding-to-teach-mathematics.html

One things I always like that @ddmeyer does is take something that we see everyday in math class and tweak it ever so slightly to be so much better for students.  He takes this somewhat standard type math problem about exponential growth and asks as slightly different question to make it better. Check it out.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCT4C
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2016/real-world-but-unnecessary/

With the recent movie Concussion about the issues of the NFL hiding or misrepresenting data about the rate of concussions occurring in the league. There is more info about the problems. In this article, there is some good info about the bias data collection methods that they employed.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-nfls-shoddy-science-means-we-know-even-less-about-concussions/



A topic that is near and dear to my heart is making sure that when you ask students questions, they have no ambiguity (unless that is part of your plan). This was a student solution posted to Reddit that most agree the student answered correctly based on what was asked. However, based on the teacher response, they clearly either did not see the ambiguity or were so inflexible that they denied the student the grades. When I see things like this I can't help but understand why some students who know math, think they don't
Curiculum Tags: All
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/04/05/pizza-math-problem_n_9617456.html

People know I'm a Desmos lover. Here it's getting some Internet love from one of them feel good "MindShift" articles. If you have been to this blog before then this is probably preaching to the choir but you might like to send it to friends you want to be Desmosfied. Just a thought
Curriculum Tags: All
http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/04/06/could-this-digital-math-tool-change-instruction-for-the-better/

I love these questions that are seemingly mysterious but then can be revealed by algebra. Click on this link to see it and solve it for yourself. Thanks to J. Paul Jakula for this one
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://www.facebook.com/DeceptionExpert/videos/533154250199766/?pnref=story


Here's a great problem that could be used when talking about volume of cylinders. Thanks to Dan Meyer for this one
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MFM1P, MPM1D
https://twitter.com/mburnsmath/status/715019902852079616/photo/1

I loves me some good order of operation animated gifs. This is probably a good example of how anxiety can affect decision making.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://giphy.com/gifs/funny-math-hNDgJoulrYxIA

I like these kinds of representations to introduce solving equations. Thanks to michele cooper for this one.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154034754747152&set=a.346576417151.188727.685892151&type=3&theater

Thank you 3D printing. Now you can have these and many other custom dice. Perfect for probability and just about any other topic. See all the dice at the link below
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.ericharshbarger.org/dice/
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