Final Assignment – Estimation Challenge

For our final activity I started the off with this……

Screen Shot 2015-06-16 at 11.21.31 AM

we filled in too high, too low, and best guesses! Then we checked the answer…..

Completing this challenge got the students pumped and hooked into doing some math on our very last days of class (especially with some students exempted from the final exam). Our final assignment is to …

Screen Shot 2015-06-16 at 11.26.04 AM

We got out the iPads and I let the kids work….. here is what a few came up with:

A lot of kids did water filling or post it note covering estimates. Some kids ended up making an all-out 3 Act math problem.

Zack

How many caps will fill the marker?

Estimate & Answer

—————————————————————————–

Alexis

How many cups to fill the shape?
Screen Shot 2015-06-17 at 8.00.20 PM

Answer:

—————————————————————————–

 

Meghan

A 3- act task in Explain Everything:

How many post-its will cover this triangular wall:

Act 1: She put a photo and a small video in Explain Everything to start us off.
IMG_1325 2

Act 2: She provided us with a little more info after we made some guesses.
IMG_1326
and
IMG_1327 2

Act 3: Made a time lapse video and provided a screen shot with the answer

IMG_1328 2

Grab her Explain Everything File here

[aio_button align=”center” animation=”none” color=”blue” size=”medium” icon=”download-alt” text=”Grab the EE File” relationship=”dofollow” url=”https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3zQp-gapBCeVmU2anF4Ty1DOUE/view?usp=sharing”]

—————————————————————————–

 

Tiana

How many stickies to fill the door window?

FullSizeRender 17

And hit us up with a time lapse video for the answer:

—————————————————————————–

 

Celina

How many water bottles will fill the hexagonal prism?

IMG_1329

and the answer

IMG_1330

Watch the water fill up by grabbing her Explain Everything File

[aio_button align=”center” animation=”none” color=”blue” size=”medium” icon=”download-alt” text=”Grab the EE File” relationship=”dofollow” url=”https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3zQp-gapBCeZkEtWnA0dWVjZ0k/view?usp=sharing”]

A fun last few days….and I’ve got some new estimates for class next year.

Guess Who & Polygraph Lines

As we come to the end of the semester review days are here. To help grade 9s review properties of linear relations we played Guess Who. Last September I ran Guess Who with my grade 12 Advanced Functions class with great success. I made up a new sheet for grade 9 with a variety of linear relations (graphs, equations, and tables).

Screen Shot 2015-06-12 at 1.07.16 PM

Guess Who game sheet

The students played a few rounds each! The questions coming out were pretty good! I overheard lots of “Does is show direct variation?”, “Does it have an initial value?”, “Is your graph decreasing?”
All great terminology I love hearing from my grade 9 applieds!!

Screen Shot 2015-06-12 at 1.12.05 PM

After a few rounds of “low tech” Guess Who, we broke out teacher.desmos.com and “high tech” Guess Who —– Polygraph – Lines

Students use a class code to access the game. Round 1 is playing the orginal guess who with pictures of people against the computer. 
The system then links you up randomly with another student in your class. You take turns each choosing a graph and asking questions to guess your opponents graph! 

Screen Shot 2015-06-12 at 1.12.15 PM
Again, great questions and discussions here! I could see the deep thinking about what questions to ask to eliminate options. Desmos once again out does it! Linking up digital resources while keeping learning social!

These students have been great to teach this semester! I’ll miss them next year!!

Show what you know in Gameshow!

IMG_3350Last week, Kyle Pearce wrote a post on running GameShow by KnowledgeHook. I was drawn to this idea mostly because of review time coming up and wanted a nice way to practice EQAO multiple choice type questions. GameShow is great for that. I love that it works on any device. Students can use their phones, iPads, laptops, etc to submit their answers.

Today I created a custom GameShow to practice simplifying algebraic expressions with my students. KnowledgeHook has a bank of questions already to go…..I just did some picking and choosing of questions I wanted to tackle and added them to my newly created custom gameshow.

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 12.05.47 PM

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 12.05.54 PM

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 12.06.06 PM

I stressed to my students to not worry about any time in the game. These multiple choice questions are not about speed. Let’s make them about accuracy. They played in teams of two with whiteboards beside their devices. I asked them to show full solutions on their whiteboards.

IMG_3355

What was awesome while playing our GameShow today was that once students submit their answer they can upload a picture of their work!!!

IMG_1101

On the teacher side, I could see how many solutions were uploaded for each answer option.Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 12.22.07 PMAs a class it was great to choose correct answers and analyze them. All answers are anonymous until the teacher clicks the reveal.  It was equally rewarding to analyze the incorrect answers and talk about how we can make them better!!! Students seeing each others’ solutions is powerful! 

IMG_3354

Since I asked for all solutions to be uploaded the students started putting more effort into their answers! I find when we use other software like this, putting in an answer is like a game. “How fast can I get it in” Uploading slows it down and puts an emphasis on the solution! Like it!!! That’s the way a gameshow should be played!!!!

This program is super new so head on over to https://knowledgehook.com/gameshow/ . It’s free. And has content build right in. Even if you’re not from Ontario you can have access to the free bank of Ready Made gameshows or create your own. You actually don’t even need to teach math to make use of the gameshow!!!

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 12.35.36 PM

 

 

Make it Parallel – An Activity with Parallel Lines

I find making the relationship among parallel lines and transversals real-world tough. So instead of real-world I went with Fake-World but making sure I incorporated space for curiosity and inquiry.

Here’s what we did…

I started class with a What do you wonder? What do you notice?


We recorded our wonderings. IMG_3327

Most students didn’t know what to say about it. Next I replayed the video and said, “I want you to yell NOW when the two white lines are parallel”

Kids were yelling out at about the same time……”Good, it’s awesome you guys can ball park when two lines are parallel”. Now Let’s create parallel lines.

I had already set up situations like this all over the hall, classroom, and outside. The prompt from me was “Create another line that cuts the transversal and is parallel to the first line. ” I also gave each group a set of pull back cars to “test out” their newly formed parallel lines…..We used them to show that the two cars won’t cross paths. Screen Shot 2015-05-26 at 11.58.44 AM

I let each group struggle with how to figure this out. I gave them all a metre stick, protractor, and markers/chalk.

Screen Shot 2015-05-26 at 12.06.00 PM

We had discussions on how we know the two lines are parallel. I pushed each group to develop the angle relationships around the transversal.

Once each group had made the new path, they were to grab their iPad and access the Explain Everything file on Parallel Lines & Transversals. They were to use the interactive features such as the protractor, and pen tools to determine the answers to the questions.

IMG_1308

IMG_1309

 

Screen Shot 2015-05-26 at 12.18.50 PM

 

Download the Explain Everything Files Now

That was out lesson on discovering properties of parallel lines and transversals. Feel free to drop me a message for any improvements/feedback!!

Check out more great Explain Everything activities:

Cathy Yenca (@mathycathy) – Using Explain Everything for Hands-On Digital Puzzles

Kyle Pearce (@mathletepearce) –

From me: