Friday, April 28, 2017

Math Links for Week Ending Apr. 28th, 2017

I don't know if I never noticed this or what but I love this group real world based math problems from @RobertKaplinski. Each one starts out relatively simply but he does a good job with extending some of the ideas and asking good questions. You can either look at the main page for a visual of all the problems or the detailed spreadsheet.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://robertkaplinsky.com/lessons/

We just published a really simple sorting activity. In this one, you can use these cards to sort students into groups of three by having students match decimal, percent and fraction representations. And as an alternative, if you wanted students could do the same sort as a Desmos card as individuals.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://engaging-math.blogspot.ca/2017/04/sort-students-into-groups-using.html



Desmos continues to add to their cannon of neat activities that help kids practice their skills in graphing points. This time its with a context that deals with the classic game Battleship.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/589115413a0694210508c17e


Next week is NetMath's Can You Math Challenge. There may still be time to sign up. Follow the link below
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.canyoumath.ca/?lang=en

Some great connections to the Golden Ratio here with these mathematical sculptures from @SciFri
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5p2A5mazEs

Here's a great animation from @mathletepearce of a problem proposed on the Would You Rather site
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://twitter.com/MathletePearce/status/858028177725194241
A slightly altered video here from @MrOrr_Geek dealing with rates. Click on the link below for some prompts and the link to the original video
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
http://mrorr-isageek.com/peregrine-falcon-fastest-animal-alive/

Along the same lines as the real world problems above, here is one from @MsALambert at the Critical Math site. It has some great data on the price of food in Nunavut. And there are more math related stories on the site. Check them out.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://criticalmath.ca/2017/04/27/food-in-nunavut-still-costs-up-to-3-times-national-average-wbeskura-sbmsalambert/

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Friday, April 21, 2017

Math Links for Week Ending Apr. 21st, 2017

One of the newest type of activities that we are starting to make a lot of is a continuum for student practice and review. It's basically a tricky way to do a worksheet. In this case it is operations with fractions for grade 7 (adding & subtracting and multiplication & division with whole numbers).  The premiss is this: there are seven envelopes. Each envelope has cards with 10 questions. As you move from one envelope to the other the questions become incrementally more difficult. Students have to do the first 5 questions on each card. If they get those correct then the go to the next card, if not they do more on the same one. And to make it a bit more fun we have answer cards for them to check with a UV pen and invisible ink.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://engaging-math.blogspot.ca/2017/04/fraction-operation-continuum.html

Here's a neat little Desmos Activity from @id_rms1 to get kids into the idea of multiplying a fraction by a whole number. Once they are done that then then can use this Mathies virtual manipulative on pouring liquid.
Curriculum Tags Gr7
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/58e591496c284b0f4c79e4c2





Looking for things for your students to think critically about? Then look no further than criticalmath.ca. The site has many posts with examples of things to get your students to think and is currently being run by @matthewoldridge.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://criticalmath.ca/2017/04/13/oil-is-cheaper-than-milk-and-water-wbmarkmelin-sbmatthewoldridge/

I always like these patterning problems where there are many interpretations of how the pattern grows. Check out the post for more on this. Thanks to @msbjacobs and @AllenMath for this one.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM2D, MFM2P
http://themathguy.blogspot.ca/2017/04/joyous-maths-dans-favourite-pattern.html

Though this article is a few years old, I don't think we can have enough info about helping students with learning disabilities. In this case, heuristics, math anxiety and more. Thanks to @KMarkPet for this one.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.ldatschool.ca/math/math-heuristics/

The next time I get a chance to talk about order of operations I'm gonna talk about this. Apparently this professor has written every three digit number as an expression using only one digit and order of operations. For example: 931 = 33 + 33 × 33 + 3 + 3 + 3/3. Watch this @numberphile video from @standupmaths with more on this and even something similar with numbers less than 11,111.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8. MPM1D, MFM1P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ruC5A9EzzE

Some data on Scrabble scores (especially now with words like Qi and Za)
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-qi-and-za-changed-scrabble/

And more movie based data. This time about the four types of Scarlett Johansson movies
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-four-types-of-scarlett-johansson-movies/



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Friday, April 14, 2017

Math Links for Week Ending Apr. 14th, 2017

Though still in beta form it's pretty cool that Desmos has started to move into the dynamic geometry area. It's not so much that we need another dynamic geometry platform (Geogebra and Geometer's Sketchpad are already awesome) but, hopefully, this will mean that soon we can incorporate dynamic sketches into Activity Builder. Right now, however, you can just play around, there are just a few building tools and you can't save your sketches. But who knows where this will lead. It didn't take long for me to make something simple (below) that shows some mathematical properties. Thanks to @dpscher for pointing this out.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.desmos.com/geometry
http://blog.desmos.com/post/159378912247/the-desmos-geometry-tool

When I saw Splat for the first time as a friendly way to solve equations. I loved how it could be used for just about any grade. And now @SteveWyborney has put out slides for Splat with Fractions. So good. Watch the how to videos and download the PPT files.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P
http://www.stevewyborney.com/?p=1028



"I've felt like I'm always assessing" - says @MrOrr_Geek. As a teacher I think, if you are doing your job, then that has to be true. In his latest post about connecting formative assessment and 3Act tasks. Some of the best assessment you can do with students is formative. Take a look at this post for some insights as to how to handle it
Curriculum Tags:All
http://mrorr-isageek.com/formative-assessment-3-act-math-tasks/

Two Easter themed activities from our Engaging Math Blog. Both are review activities. One is for analytic geometry and the other for proportional reasoning. It's a good time to stock up on those plastic Easter eggs from the Dollar store
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P
http://engaging-math.blogspot.ca/search/label/Easter

I tweeted this out a couple of weeks ago but forgot to add it to the weekly links. It's @standupmaths doing the math behind the double domino. I didn't know that this was a thing that could happen and was surprised at what happens - you will be to Great for connections to similar triangles, ratios and Pythagorean Theorem.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYkBctqyKic

And I was so inspired by it that I did my own double brick experiment. As you can see at the end, I was quite proud of the result.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYSiL6Sbf74

If you haven't heard, the Global Math Project is prepping for Global Math Week this fall. The third of the webinars was last week but you can see it and the rest of the webinars at the link below
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.theglobalmathproject.org/global-math-week-webinars

Ooh I like this one. A cool fraction question dealing with areas of triangles.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://twitter.com/ProfSmudge/status/852518463444844545

Are you doing rotations in class? Why not turn Twitter into Batman?
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://twitter.com/pickover/status/851580061455187968

Having kids make inferences from graphs is important. The inference I see here is that my Mac is getting less secure.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://uk.businessinsider.com/mac-malware-grows-2016-mcafee-report-2017-4



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Friday, April 7, 2017

Math Links for Week Ending Apr. 7th, 2017

@MrOrr_Geek builds a neat context into a 3 Acts Task (see Act 2 below) that deals with direct variation. The context is that of who is the fastest texter. I bet kids would get a kick out of this and you could even have some texting competitions in your own class to collect more data. Regardless check it out, including the companion Desmos activity.
Curriculum Tags: MFM1P, MPM1D, MFM2P
http://mrorr-isageek.com/turbo-texting/


I was reminded of an older physical card sort that was used to create groups of 3 using quadratic relations. You had to match a graph, equation and table based on looking at the solutions of each set. So today I recreated it as a Desmos cardsort and for the rest of my Desmos activities, click here.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MBF3C, MCF3M, MCR3U
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/58e791d2a3cb2342b3ec93a8

Some insights into why students mix up area and perimeter from @RobertKaplinski. The main idea is about contexts (or lack there of).
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
http://robertkaplinsky.com/students-mix-area-perimeter/

To give MC or not to give MC, that is the question. At least that is part of the question that @MarkChubb3 talks about on this post. He has some keen insights on how to answer MC questions and some counters to some common MC tips.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://buildingmathematicians.wordpress.com/2017/04/06/how-to-answer-multiple-choice-questions/

There is no reason for mathematics to be nothing but inclusive. Check out this interview with a Trans mathematician
Curriculum Tags: All
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/q-a-with-autumn-kent/







In the "it's never too late" category, a 67 year old man proves a long standing math problem in probability by being inspired while brushing his teeth. The context is about throwing darts at a target and although it has been conjectured, it had never been proven. Now it has thanks to the fact that you never know when or how you will be inspired (or how old you will be).
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170328-statistician-proves-gaussian-correlation-inequality/



Though the modelling here might be a bit too complex, it does tell us why mathematical modelling is important. Here Canadian mathematicians create a SIMS like program to save the bees. Thanks to @KMarkPet for pointing out this one. 

Curriculum Tags:All
http://www.metronews.ca/views/science-says/2017/03/16/canadian-mathematicians-sims-like-program-to-help-save-bees.html

I have always loved those conditional probability questions about false positive when testing for a disease. Here @veritasium talks about this idea, conditional probability and more when dealing with Bayes theorem. Nice stuff.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R13BD8qKeTg

Dealing with problems having to do with position time graphs? You might like this little video. Thanks to @mathletepearce for this one.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/MathletePearce/status/849308047889616897

Some bad math dealing with decimals pointed out by @MatthewOldridge
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://medium.com/@MatthewOldridge/thats-some-very-bad-mathematics-e66bd1545634

Another nice image from @MarkChubb3 dealing with fractions (or percents or proportions ......). So easy to pull off in class.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://twitter.com/MarkChubb3/status/848646614377955329


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