Mathematical Vibes

Sometimes math is hard and people give up... It's that simple.

When people are asked their favourite subjects in school, they often say: physical education, art or English. On the other hand, many students tend to openly confess that they HATE math.... Math teachers often find this repulsive and don't understand the reasoning behind these students perceptions but let's debrief a little bit...

1. Many mathematical instruction has been taught through rote memorization in the past. Students might ask "why" but they are not given straight forward answers. These are the answers that they crave and seek. 

                                       
2. It might also because students have never developed a strong attachment to the language or never saw the importance of math in their daily lives. Maybe they never enjoyed their math classes in the past and have memories of textbook questions and taking notes. BORING. Math is so much more fun and there are so many more exciting new ways that students can be engaged!
                                               
3. To top it all off, math is hard! You have to work hard at it in order to be successful and sometimes it is super frustrating when you don't get it! It is something that you have to work continuously hard at to get better. After all practice makes perfect. Therefore, when people start to stress out, they might label it as "hard" and "dumb."

                                              

However, what if students saw the importance of the concepts of the problems that they were learning and their connection to real life problems? What if they were taught interactively and in a way that built off of different learning styles? What if each mathematical class built up their class as a community in order to help, support and celebrate the members of their class?

These are a lot of "what ifs", but it is important to know, that teachers have the power to change the perceptions of math amongst their students. Sometimes students just need that extra care and attention in order to be successful. That extra push, the creation of interactive and rewarding mathematical games and the constant reference of the importance of each concept in our daily lives, is important for students in order to develop a stronger connection to the subject. The passion for different mathematical concepts is also important for students to witness. They need to know that the teacher appreciates what she/he is teaching and values the importance of the daily implications of mathematical problems and the success of his/her students.

Math is fun for Kids

Math is fun for Kids

          From my childhood I love math. To find the solutions of math problems and think about it was my hobby and challenge. I can remember that I spent a lots of time to get the solutions of different complex math and also I liked it. Most of the people all over the world especially for the women think that math is a very hard and complex subject for them. But as an OCT certified teacher my goal is to prove that math is fun for kids/children/students. As for my target, I always try to use many different activities in the math class as per that grade level and also as per the topics.

        For example, in my practice teaching in a grade 5/6 class I asked the students to choose one number in their mind, and I can tell their exact number without asking them. So, all the students' were surprised how do I do it? Then I told them this is not a magic trick just have to do some calculation.

        So, students picked their own number in their mind. Then I gave the instructions like “Multiply your number by 2, then add my number 6, then divide the number again with 2 and tell me the quotient.

        When they told me the quotient, I just subtracted half of my number what I asked them to add earlier and then I can tell what their number is.

 

        If one student chooses 12 as his number, then as per the rules

        12 X 2= 24, then add my number is 6, is 30, then divide by 2 is 15.

So, student's told me the quotient is 15. Then I subtracted 3 as per half of my number, then I get 12 which is the student's number.

        After I told all the students’ numbers separately as per their different quotients, they wondered how I did it. Then I explained to them that this is nothing but only some mental calculation.

        This is one example of how the students were engaging them-self in the math activity with fun.

        As a math teacher, in the last few years I have been engaging myself with different age groups of children with numerous kinds of math activities and math games as per their grade level. In my blog, I want to add one fabulous website which I have been using most with the students and which I believe will be more acceptable and benefiting for others.   

The website address is: http://www.mathsisfun.com/

MATH IS FUN! This website provides a lots of math activities and games which covered all the students for different grade levels interacted with the curriculum expectations. They convinced millions of people how fun and enjoyable math activities are. 

Discovery Education, TECHBOOK

Discovery Education is a great resource of Math Learning for all levels of students. It also has available services for Science and Social Studies. Once anyone visit this blog they will be benefited and learn a diverse lesson from one canopy. 

Discovery Education partners with school districts, dioceses and charters around the world to transform teaching & learning and improve students’ achievement. Digital textbooks, standards-aligned curricular resources, and transformative professional development support schools as they make their digital transition and conversion.

            As per research 50% of U. S. schools, 1 million educators and 35 million students, and formed of the creative energy that brought the world Discovery Channel, they are proud to help transform schools one classroom, one educator, and one child at a time.  

What do school districts that are raising the bar for student achievement all have in common? A clear vision, a strong plan with buy-in from all stakeholders, supported teachers and great instructional content.

In a sea of crowdsourced content and OER, finding the right, high-quality resources continues to be a daunting and time-consuming task. But ask some of the country's most respected curriculum leaders and classroom teachers what resource they trust most, and they'll tell you Discovery Education Techbook™. Standards-based with content that is relevant, dynamic, and carefully vetted, Techbook:

• Is available in math, science, and social studies.
• Saves teachers time with its comprehensive design that includes model lessons, student activities, assessments, and data dashboards embedded at point-of-use.
• Makes differentiation easier through a blend of text and media, different reading levels and languages, and text-to-speech feature.
• Can be used in any technology setting—in one-to-one and one-to-many classrooms.
• Is updated regularly at no additional cost.
• To open the site just click here Discovery Education or use the URL below: http://www.discoveryeducation.com/what-we-offer/techbook-digital-textbooks/

This website has great ideas for using estimation to find the answers of different questions.

http://www.estimation180.com

I really like this one. They can try and look at things like the doors or the height of the light switch to be able to prove their thinking.

How tall is his son?

My Favourite No

An interesting way to ensure your students understand the material. By looking at what someone has done well, but also how they may be wrong.

My Favourite No

3D Printers making Math and Science Projects real

3D Printers

An extension to Mechanical Devices and 3D is to move towards practical applications of 3D geometry to make your design come to life.  3D printers are becoming ever more popular in schools across the country turning ones creativity into a creation. 3D printing goes beyond the build of a geometrical design, 3D printing allows for cross curricular applications. Business, technology, literacy, science and math can all be integrated in a classroom with the 3D printed model as the corner stone within the project. As for the math classroom one can create physical examples of anything that can be described mathematically with algebraic, boolean and trigonometric functions. 

Here's a link to an article by George Hart who is mentoring teachers in the use of 3D printing for Mathematics
http://georgehart.com/rp/3D-printing-for-math-classroom.html

"3D printing is a valuable tool for engaging mathematics students and providing them with motivation to master many technical topics in the math classroom. As the technology becomes less expensive and more ubiquitous, teachers in K-12 and college environments are gaining easy access to 3D printers which can be used for education. Most teachers are not familiar with this technology and its possible uses, so I have been leading hands-on workshops for mathematics teachers across the US and internationally, introducing them to the techniques needed to use consumer-level 3D printers (such as the Makerbot Replicator) to enrich a math classroom.

Software packages such as Mathematica can translate algebraic expressions into 3D forms that are then created as tangible, low-cost, plastic objects that students can hold in their hands, take home, and/or pass around the class. Workshop participants are given a series of progressively more complex design challenges and are also asked to come up with their own individual objects of interest to create. Each class ends with something that has never existed before printing on the 3D printer.  They introduce students to the creative side of mathematics and provide a powerful motivation for learning the details." 

Another example of 3D printers used for math and science is the following.

From a white paper from the corporation Stratasys

THE SCIENCE OF AERODYNAMICS

The forces of aerodynamics that act on an airplane in flight — lift, gravity, thrust and drag — can be difficult concepts for students to follow through plain lecture or text and images. But if they design and build gliders for themselves, they’ll begin to see how opposing forces balance and act on each other. Stratasys® created an online lesson guide available for teachers that will help them walk students through designing gliders and building them with a 3D printer. The curriculum includes leading questions to help students explore the most effective wing designs, determine the correct balance between strength for launching (and crashing the plane) and weight for gaining optimal flight time, and how to design the glider to minimize material waste. The lesson also includes design tips for printing glider parts. For example, the minimal wall thickness that can be reliably printed is 0.6 mm. For load-bearing parts, such as the connectors to which the wings are attached, the thickness should be over 2 mm. A four-minute video shows how the basic design of the glider works and walks the student through the use of wing covering material and adhesives to finish off the project. A downloadable zip file contains STL files that can be used as templates to help students kick off their computer-aided design efforts. Find this four-minute video (labeled as Episode 3) and other resources at www.stratasys.com/industries/education/resources.

file:///C:/Users/Benjamin/Downloads/White%20Paper%20-%20Seven%203D%20Printing%20Stem%20Projects%20to%20do%20with%20your%20class.pdf

Making Math an Art Form

Most people think Art and Math are polar opposites, and why is it that students love Art class and “hate” math?  Art is considered creative where math is concrete right?  We need to change the mindset and show math for the art form that it is, both subjects use symbolism to create a desired result. Just like art, there are also many different ways to do math.  We need to make math equally as fun and beautiful in order to engage more students.

Take a look at the following site where high school students created mosaics to represent mathematical concepts found in nature.  Patterns and symmetry, symbolism and geometry. The possibilities are endless!

https://kirstingreen.com/math-in-nature/