Saturday, May 12, 2018

Bundled Courses: The Art of Math

This year, the coolest combination of subjects fell into my lap. I had a short term LTO in this bundle course called the Art of Math.

Yes, I couldn't believe it either -- two of my favourite subjects in one perfectly bundled course!

If you were thinking, how does that work? Let me introduce you to my amazing colleagues:

@briscoeclass & @mrsvankesteren on Twitter.

These ladies have been incredible innovators changing the way math and art are delivered. I encourage you to watch this video as they discuss their journey to bundling these two distinct concepts into a whole-brain focused course filled with engagement and understanding.

My experience in this classroom is what sparked my interest in getting my Math Qualifications for grades 9 and 10. In this class the students worked on math concepts with the math expert and art concepts with the art expert... but then would apply them into projects designed to highlight both concepts at once.

During my short time in this classroom, the students were looking at parallel lines and traversals, and how certain rules would help you discover the measurements of other angles... They would then connect these concepts to solve for interior angles within an image:


This is just one small example of how the two subjects could be blended together. The course was based on experiential learning and application of math and art principles.

If you watched the video you know there was a positive effect on student learning. Students were so engaged and learned so effortlessly they felt as if they had not actually had to learn it... they just knew it.

What other blended subjects do you think could work well together in a course bundle?

1 comment:

  1. I found this video interesting, I never thought you could blend to different subjects like math and art together. I would love to talk to these teachers to see exactly how the curriculum was delivered and how evaluation were done was it assignment based or test or a blend of both. Showing students the math in art is a creative way of getting students to think outside the box and develop critical thinking as stated in the video. At our school we are starting a STEM program that will be project based and will blend science, technology engineering and math all together for the entire student stay in high school. I think cross curricular learning is the way of the future in education and that project based learning promotes creative real life problem solving skills that they can apply in the real world. I agree that this is defiantly needs to be explored. Our school is taking robotic, science, tech and math courses and using project based assignments to get student to apply more then one subject together to create something that can be used by our local community. This is a great way to get student involved and invested as the speaker on the video was explaining which in turn promotes a unique learning environment that is not just textbooks and questions. Thank for posting this video!

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