Math Links for Week Ending Aug. 26th, 2016

Having Desmos activity builder at our finger tips now is awesome. The problem is that so many teachers are making so many activities that it's hard to keep track. Well, thanks to teachers like @greenbloch, we have some places where these activities are categorized. In this case these are activities for middle school (US based) but for us in Ontario that could mean gr 6 to gr 9. Check his document out and you will find links to graphing activities, of course, but for the younger grades there are many activities that deal with things like integers, estimation, multiplication, geometry and other categories. Check them all out at the link below. Thanks to @marybourassa for this one.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19b0ziiuR0Lu3HJtgeCkojSPgpTTZA8rOENW-2QuWKJs/edit

For the last two years I have been part of a research project centred around grade 9 applied and this past week we had our "wedding reception". That is we put on two 2-day workshops for about 500 teachers in Toronto and London to showcase some of the things we learned. There were 10 research groups in the project from around the province and we all participated in telling our story of what we found works. There were plenary sessions from @pi_lab, @AliMacaulay and Martha Koch and breakout sessions from the rest of us on things like spiralling, technology, the Five Practices, engaging students, making thinking visible and much more. And although this was primarily about grade 9 applied, I feel  like most of these topics would fit any course. You can check out the back channel conversation at #math4thenines or all of the slide decks below

Curriculum Tags: All

http://9appliedsummerinstitute.wikispaces.com/

Communication aside, which solution demonstrates greater understanding? #mathchat #math4theNines pic.twitter.com/gls9UzKhvZ

— Jamie Cable (@jacableSCDSB) August 23, 2016

I am a player of Pokemon Go - there I said it. That being said I like finding ways to incorporate it into math classes. This was my attempt a few weeks ago but, of course, @ddmeyer has done something a bit more engaging. It's only the first act of a 3Act task but it's a great connection to circumference. Plus he goes into a bit of an exposition on why he does what he does:

"So this 3-Act math task is bound to disappoint everybody above. It’s a trivial question about a piece of pop culture ephemera wrapped up in multimedia whizbangery."

Curriculum Tags: Gr8

http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2016/testify/

In May I posted a calculus activity on matching derivatives and now the folks at Desmos have turned it into a card sort. It even made a recent Friday Five. Check out the original post with the updated link to the card sort at the link below.

Curriculum Tags: MCV4U

http://engaging-math..../derivative-matching-cards.html

If it's posters you want then @mathequalslove could be the blog of choice. Check out these posters for when you are dealing with perfect squares and pythagorean triples. Click on the links below for all the downloads.

Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P

http://mathequalslove.blogspot.ca/2016/07/pythagorean-triple-posters.html

http://mathequalslove.blogspot.ca/2016/07/posters-of-perfect-squares-and-perfect.html

And as an extra bonus, you get the Geogebra file from @theShaunCarter that were used to make the perfect square posters. 

Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8

https://blog.primefactorisation.com/2016/07/28/perfect-cubes-images/

Given the interest in Pokemon Go, you might like this twitter feed @PokemonGoEdu. A quick look through and I found this neat data activity by having kids look through their Pokedex 

Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8

https://twitter.com/PokemonGoEdu

https://lesliefarooq.wordpress.com/2016/08/10/pokemon-go-math/

If you are using any of the TI graphing calculators then you might like this upgrade special for the latest TI-Smartview emulator. This deal is valid for the rest of the year. Thanks to @mark_esping for this one.

Curriculum Tags: All

https://education.ti.com/en/us/sv-upgrade

@MatthewOldridge reminds us that there really is no best way. The title says it all: "The question is not, “how best to teach mathematics?” The question, educator, is “how best for YOU to teach mathematics?”"
Curriculum Tags: All

http://matthewoldridge.blogspot.ca/2016/08/the-question-is-not-how-best-to-teach.html

Last year @ddmeyer spoke at the 2015 OAME annual conference. He spoke on the topic of "real world" math. This year he spoke at NCTM and had the same theme. I think at OAME we got one of the first versions of that talk and NCTM got one of the last. It was interesting to see how the talk evolved. What he kept in, and what he added. Whether you saw it last year or this year, there was some good stuff. I really appreciate the part where he tweaked a textbook question live on the spot. It's not newly posted but I just found it. Have a gander
Curriculum Tags: All
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2016/nctm16-beyond-relevance-real-world-stronger-strategies-for-student-engagement/

And one more with the Pokemon Go theme. A graphic for showing which ones appear the most. Certainly you could find some inferencing questions to ask
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2016/07/18/the-rarest-pokemon-you-can-find-in-pokemon-go/#20dd40dc3ffd

I like this if you are talking about data for inferences. Nice and topical for kids.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MDM4U
https://twitter.com/DataIsBeautiful/status/768665588935819265

From iMacs to iPhones: The change in Apple's revenue mix https://t.co/BaV3CJw7QX #dataviz pic.twitter.com/MTfK97SNzV

— /r/DataIsBeautiful (@DataIsBeautiful) August 25, 2016