Using Curiosity To Your Advantage

Hello everyone!

This week was the last week of class, and what an eventful year it has been. I can truly say that I have learned a lot in this math course, as it has put me in various situations I know I will be in as a future educator. More importantly, this course has introduced me to new techniques and insights in the educational world, such as courses with no marks and the spiral method to deliver courses, which I am confident will pick up momentum with educators across the world in the next few years. I am truly honoured to be in such a wonderful classroom environment and look forward to using many of the shared resources we as future educators have shared with each other throughout the year and in our lessons to the class. 

This week our colleagues had the pleasure pf delivering a lesson for the grade 9 and 10 locally developed class and the grade 11 and 12 workplace courses. Today I would like to go into detail about one of the lessons, in particular the grade 9 locally developed class on proportional reasoning. This was a great lesson because the teacher conducted an inquiry on a Guinness world record based on clapping. Students were shown the following video:

After seeing this video, students were asked probing questions such as whether or not they believed the person would break the world record of 721 claps, and so on. This was a great way to get the students to think about their answer, and estimate how many claps the person did in four seconds. In our classroom, there were a vast variety of techniques people used to count the claps. I personally kept time with my feet and used a music-orientated 16 beat rhythm to count the claps in the four seconds. Regardless, after everyone in the class tries to map out how many claps the person does in the video, the teacher shows the following video which gives the actual number in the class. 

Once the students have the right number, they can use proportional reasoning to figure out the actual number of claps he completed in a minute, and if it broke the world record. Students would have to figure out how many times 4.5 seconds fits in a minute, and then use proportional reasoning to come to the final answer. Once everyone has their number for the claps in a minute, the teacher uses the last video to conclude the activity and consolidate with the class. 

Mathematics in Everyday Life

Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog!

I recently travelled to the United States where I visited Chicago for the first time. What a breathtaking city, with its beautiful architecture and the Chicago River manoeuvring through the inner city, it is definitely a place I would recommend people to visit. During my trip to the windy city, I found myself doing a lot of everyday math. Looking at speed limits in the imperial system as opposed to the metric system, filling up my tank of gas in gallons as opposed to litres, and even just budgeting my expenses taking into account the conversion rate of the American dollar, I noticed that people need to have a basic understanding of mathematics in order to accomplish everyday tasks. This week in our math class, fellow classmates of mine capitalised on this epiphany of mine by talking about different high school courses I was not aware of.  The first course I would like to talk about was presented by a friend of mine, Kyle, who introduced the grade 11 Foundations for College Presentation.

 In his presentation, Kyle introduced to the class different information about different banking institutions. In particular, he discussed the uses of debit cards and credit cards, something every student will be using one day. He first broke the class into different table groups, and each table group was given one type of card and information such as the interest rates, the monthly transactions fees, and benefits (if any) of the type of card. With this information, the table groups had to figure out the total cost of buying a TV, along with a scenario of daily activities one would spend on in a month. After the table groups came together as a class to share information about their card and which card or bank had the most efficient solution.

This lesson was extremely efficient in introducing to the student's mathematical problems that they may be facing at this time in their life. It will also teach students to take into consideration the different problems they have, and ways to save a lot of money that provide the same services depending on their expenses. 

Grade 12 Can Be Fun Too!

Hello everyone! Welcome back to an exciting week of math!

This week my colleagues in class were presenting grade 12 math lessons in advanced functions and data management. Both of them were influential in bringing gamification elements into the classroom environment, which created a very engaging lesson. I have discussed the benefits of gamification elements in the math classroom earlier on in this blog, so please scroll down if you would like a breakdown as to how gamification is beneficial to the classroom dynamic!

The first activity we did as a class was dominos with logarithms. This activity is best used as a consolidation to refine and work on student skills since students need to have prior knowledge of logarithm laws. Students are given a  dominoes like the one displayed on the right. Each domino has two values on either side. The students as a table group get seven dominos each and have to play a game of dominos with the cards they get. The mathematical aspect here is the fact that students need to figure out what the numerical value of each tile on the domino is. This is due to the fact that the traditional rules of dominoes state that you can only put down a domino if the tiles have the same value as the one it is connected to. Students need to build off the dominoes in play in order to finish their hand and win the game. The first person to place down all their dominos wins!

Keeping up with the theme of gamification and making the math class fun, the next activity we did with the class was surrounding the famous game show "Deal or No Deal" hosted by Howie Mandel. This was in relation to Data Management, and was extremely engaging because it showcases how math can be used anywhere and everywhere, and sometimes it can even allow you to make more money! This activity follows the same rules as the game show, where contestants have to pick a case for themselves and are not allowed to look at it. Inside each case is a different amount of money ranging from one cent to a million dollars. The idea behind the show is to walk away with the most money while the banker, a third party person, will offer you money after each round of opening cases. This can be used in the math classroom by making the students figure out the probability of picking a case higher than the bank offer. For instance, if the banker offers you $100 000, and there are 15 cases left to open, the student has to figure out the probability of opening cases lower than 100000 so that the bank offer goes up, or if they themselves have the case that is higher than the offer.  This activity is a great way to incorporate probabilities in the math classroom and consolidate thier learning while keeping the students engaged.