Exponential Functions

Hello everyone!

This week in our math class we are continuing to present lesson-learning activities. This week a colleague of mine delivered a fascinating lesson on exponential functions. Throughout teachers college and during my undergraduate years, my education professors always stressed the importance of making a lesson relevant to students. A lesson needs to be engaging and relevant to the students so that they can use what they learned in the lesson in the real world. This week my colleague did a great job incorporating real world events and trends to the students that would be in the class.

During the lesson, the class was divided into small groups and there were stations set up around the class with different activities at each station. For instance, at station one, the students were given a scenario of a zombie apocalypse and had to identify how many people were infected after a certain period of time. Students were given counters to help visualise the infected every twenty-four hours. For me personally, this was a thrilling activity and way to learn about exponential functions. I always play zombie apocalyptic video games and have talked to students about this on several occasions. I think using zombies for exponential functions is a great idea!


In the next station, even if you did not know much about zombies and zombie apocalypses, you can still relate to the scenario because it was an internet phenomenon that went viral worldwide. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a challenge that went viral on all social media platforms in order to raise money for ALS. Most people in the classroom would relate to this since most people took part in it. Not only is this topic relatable for all the students, but being in the groups and trying to figure out the problem together fostered student communication which is vital in any classroom. Voicing our opinions and getting to the answer together made the groups talk about their thinking processes out loud in order to consolidate on a final answer.

As a future educator, I learnt the importance of keeping things relevant to the students. Taking part in these activities, I was extremely engaged because I was genuinely curious as to how many zombies there were by the end of the day and how many people did take part in the challenge since the numbers seemed accurate from personal experience.

Making Math Interactive

Hello everyone!

This week we had the pleasure of taking part in a unique lesson that I never experienced in the math class growing up. In this lesson regarding grade 9 applied math, students had the opportunity to get out from their seats and recreate graphs using a motion detector. In particular, the students would use CBR (Calculator Based Rangers), which is essentially a motion detector, that tracks movement from and away the detector. In this specific lesson, students were to create a certain set of graphs given to them.




Above are the graphs the students had to recreate in class. It was extremely fun and engaging because the students had to physically get up and place the motion detector on a nearby surface, and recreate the graph. This meant that students had to change their pace, walk away and/or towards the motion detector, and stay still for a couple seconds and then move in order to recreate the graph. It was a very engaging activity and works well in a class, especially for visual and kinesthetic learners.


I really enjoyed this activity because it got students to be more active in their own learning. Not only does it move from the traditional method of the teacher at the front of the class and students sitting down at the desk, but it allows for student participation and movement which creates an engaging environment.

Grade 9 & Grade 10 Academic

Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting week in the world of math. This week I had the pleasure of watching my colleagues run activities in Grade 9 and 10 academic math, and what an eventful evening it was! During our time in class, we had the pleasure of being introduced to a speed dating activity that will make sure your class stays engaged and meets the success criteria in your linear relations unit.

The activity was called "Speed Dating and Equation Making", and is suitable for all grade levels with a little bit of tweaking. In order to run the activity, the desks first need to be moved in order to create a "U" shape around the classroom. The "U" shape is made with two circles, an inner circle and an outer circle. This way the desks are facing each other, similar to a speed dating session.

Materials Needed:

-Flash Cards

-Graphing Paper

-Pencils/Different colour pencil crayons

-Ruler

Once you have the desks set up and the materials you need, you are ready to start this fun and exciting activity! There are two different type of flash cards, one flash card contains the y-intercept, while another flash card contains a word problem that identifies your slope. Now every student in the inner circle gets the same type of flash card (for instance all slope cards), while everyone on the outer circle gets the other type of flash card (the y-intercept). Students then take their seat and put the two flashcards together to create a line. They then have to graph their line on the graph paper provided. On the graph paper, there are several points that are indicated with a heart. If the line you and your partner create go through the heart, you are a match! After about one minute, all the people on the inner circle get up and move on to their next "date", where the process repeats itself and you see if you both are compatible and are a match! 

I thoroughly enjoyed this activity because it was fun creating the lines and seeing if I got a potential date. In the math classroom, students often are given worksheets with repetitive drills to consolidate their learning. While this practice is key to learning any concept, it can be quite boring. This activity allows students to consolidate their graphing and linear skills while at the same time keeping them engaged. The students do not even realize they are doing math work because they are so caught up in the game trying to get the most dates! 

In my future classroom I will definitely be using this activity. Not only can it be used for creating linear equations, but even across other grade levels this game can be tweaked in order to incorporate quadratics, trigonometry and other parts of the math curriculum.