Month: February 2014
day 109: scatter plot notes & correlation
Today I borrowed an interactive note page from Sarah Rubin at Everybody Is A Genius. I felt like it went OK, but it took longer then I would have liked and I found myself getting frustrated that few students really were thinking while most chatted and just copied someone nearby. I really liked the activity, but not its implementation. I think next year I’ll make this a little more brief and dedicate more time to writing equations & using them to make predictions.
day 107: Wrapping up the trigonometry pile up
I planned to allow 10 minutes for students to ask questions & make progress on the triangle pile up. They make everything into such a big deal. After a reassuring talk about how I am confident that they have a lot of tools in their math bag of tricks, students did realize they could do this. I pointed out and we discussed Standards of Math Practice 1, 5 & 6. I’m excited to learn that “tools” refers to math skills in addition to physical and virtual items (trig & Pythagorean theorem, for examples).
I had a student ask me why we were doing this and that this is not something that would occur in “real life.” I responded that the task itself is not the goal, but persistence, precision & practice using tools were the real objectives. Their reply was “Oh, that makes sense” and they got to work!
Once they were sold and digging in, they really got on a roll. I couldn’t stop them to move on to another activity, it was just so beautiful to see them patiently working.
[update 4/24: It appears that folks are coming to this site to find the solution to the trig pile up. I want to make sure you know that the colorful work of the student above has some errors and is not a correct solution. I would never post the real solution here, silly!]
day 106: Triangle Pile up
Today we did our first Graphing Stories warm up & the students were very upset that we got rid of estimation180 I’m going to have to bring it back in a month or two. But, man did they need the practice graphing! It was a mess and totally worth it. I heard students asking if they really had to pay attention to the seconds and their lines were curved when the should have been. I knew we need the practice.
After that I reminded them of the importance of the Standards of Mathematical Practice and ranted about SMP 1: PERSEVERANCE and we had a great discussion of its value. then I gave them the Trigonometry Pile up and asked “what do you notice” we discussed how it looked messy and overwhelming, then we talked about why. Most students agreed it was too many triangles and too many numbers. I asked them to consider ways they could make it more manageable…they concluded that we should redraw each triangle as we work our way up. Many students asked for bigger copies of the activity, so I blew it up for them and made it lighter so that they can easily read their writing on it will share tomorrow.
My initial plan was to do the clinometer activity tomorrow, but so many students were in a bit of a panic over this task that decided to allow them time to work in class tomorrow with my support. I’ll have to save the clinometer activity for another day.
Planning the next six weeks of Geometry
I really struggled planning the next six weeks of the school year for geometry. Although I hate it, the big fat state testing happens mid March. Probability & statistics is addressed heavily, and since my students have not seen it much, and it is important, and it is included in our states adoption of the CCSS for geometry, I decided that I should do a quick basic review of it. I may be cramming it in, but it will be fun goshdarnit!
This hexter starts with finishing up some real world trig, measuring with clinometers and a fun triangle pile up task as a performance assessment. Then we will collect data & make scatter plots, finding equations of the line of best fit and making predictions,and of course, this interactive note page. I decided not to use calculator regressions because my students need to work on developing fluency writing linear equations anyway. After that we will experiment with mean and median and how they are affected by outliers. We will do Jellyblubbers to help develop understanding of sampling strategies, although if I need more time with other skills, then Jellyblubbers will not happen and I will be sad.
I need to allow enough time to have lotsa fun with probabilities too. I am going to ensure they understand compound probabilities, and’s, or’s, independent & dependent events. I do not have a lot of resources for the probability week, so i’ll either have to create some (and I’ll share!) or you can share your awesomeness in the comments.
After the state testing we will do surface area & volume. I’m excited to introduce surface area with Mr. Stadel’s file cabinet post it task. Then will do some interactive notes on surface area & some practice with various irregular solids. Then on to volume. I am going to go with some of these tasks, combined with notes & practice.
- Mathalicious’s canalysis
- pop box design
- penny wars
- you pour I choose
My plan is not as concrete as it normally is. I am not sure why, but I know I figure it all out. I just can’t think about things that will be happening after spring break. Also, I am in a little bit of a panic over how the heck to teach my programming class.
Here is the learning target tracking sheet:
New Geometry warm up routines!
I really enjoyed the warm up routines done by Jessica (@algebrainiac1), and I used them for about six months. I have done some thinking about what students need more practice with and I decided, at least for the next 6 weeks to change up the routines.
I created a new warm up sheet to go with it, although it is not a beautiful as Jessica’s, it’ll do for now.
It includes:
- Monday- graphing stories
- Tuesday –patterns
- Wednesday – math talks – I’m debating about the number line on the number talk day. I’m currently thinking that I will leave it in since my plan is to have students put numbers in order on a number line (scientific notation, irrational numbers, fractions, etc).
- Thursday – mental math
- Friday – where I can throw in what they need that week.
I’m pretty sad that there are not enough days in the week to include:
What do you think?
Update 2/23: I found this little gem, which could come in handy in the future.
Update 3/06: I hope to convert this resource from the Shell center into warm ups over the summer
Day 104: Right triangle trig with words
I printed the questions on cards and gave a set to each group to encourage collaboration. I just gave them to the students. No instruction, no fancy schmancy notes. They learned through struggling and did great!
[update 2/28: Look! Research to support productive failure!]
Day 103: Do wat’cha need
I put together an elaborate plan today to complete a station activity practicing different types of right triangle trigonometry. Then, this morning before class, I talked to the students, and i listened. They told me that they needed more time & they had questions….I adapted. So today after our warm up, I provided students with a prioritized list of work to complete and I just helped them and let them manage their time as they needed. Some had an old project that they never finished and they were stuck, others needed trig practice. The vast majority 95% of the class worked all period on what they needed and were on task!
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Crazy Math Teacher Lady 