Below is a link to few examples of how I use Video and/or images to engage students in my math classes.
– Most of the ideas here are not my own. Credit should be given to Dan Meyer, Andrew Stadel and Kyle Pearce.
Class Activities
Solve, Crumple, Toss – Trashketball!
Instead of doing the same old worksheet in class on finding exact values of trigonometric ratios……change it up! I saw the blog post “Solve Crumple Toss” on Kate Nowak’s site and decided to give this a try.
I Took the worksheet and cut up all the questions. I put each question on a half piece of paper.
I called it Trashketball
Rules:
- Take one question at a time and solve/complete it.
- Get it checked by the teacher:
- if correct —put your name on it, crumple it up and put in the basket. Get another!
- if incorrect — try again!
Bonus Shot
- If you were correct on your first attempt ….. then take another slip of paper, put your name on that, crumple that up and shoot! If it goes in…..it stays in the basket. Otherwise it goes in the recycle bin.
At the end of the time the teacher randomly selects one crumpled “ball” the name chosen is the winner!
Just a little different that doing the same old worksheet!
Instantaneously Awesome!
So check this out!
Our lesson in Advanced Functions is “I should be able to determine the instantaneous rate of change of a function at a particular instant.”
Here’s what went down….
We began by grabbing an Explain Everything file from our Google Drive.
We watched Dan run!
After watching his run I asked… “Draw a prediction in the file of his Elevation Vs. time”
We used AppleTV to share our graphs…..brave students shot their graph up for display and for everyone to judge! Students were asked to support their prediction.
We then moved to the next slide….. And saw a Desmos graph of mimicking most of the student predictions.
Students were then asked to use the secant line on the desmos graph to:
1. Find the average rate of change between 2 seconds and 10 seconds.
2. Estimate the instantaneous rate at exactly 2 seconds….by manipulating the points.
After a consensus on what everyone thought was the instantaneous rate…and a discussion on what that means….we moved to the next slide to verify our result by looking at the tangent line at 2 seconds.
Lastly, we verified those results by calculating the instantaneous rate at 2 seconds using algebra!
Overall it was a pretty we’ll received lesson!
Any thoughts/feedback?
Sorting Out Explain Everything
There are lots of great things in Math being done with the app Explain Everything! Explain Everything has been the go-to app of choice for many teachers, students to showcase learning and understanding.
Students in my class have used this app to explain major concepts from the course. For example, a student used the app to create a video on the differences between Direct and Partial variation.
The app can be used for other great uses besides video recording…
I have been using the app to create short Sorting activities.
Click the picture and download the Explain Everything .xpl file.
The white space in the app allows users to easily move, rotate, and sort images on the screen. In the example above, as a warm up my students were asked to sort the solution to the equation in the correct order. We then had discussions on steps to solve equations.
Below is another sorting activity on sorting out linear relations. They were asked to match up tables, graphs, equations, and descriptions.
Click the picture and download the Explain Everything .xpl file.
Another sorting activity: For MPM2D or MCF3M or MCR3U – Sorting the Quadratic Formula. Students were asked to sort out solutions to solving equations by completing the square. After sorting a number of solutions, they were asked to sort the general development of the Quadratic Formula.
Click the picture and download the Explain Everything .xpl file
