Warm-up

 If one pound of sliced strawberries equals 2.7 cups, how many pounds do you need for a strawberry pie calling for 4 cups of sliced strawberries?

Warm-up

 

If you have 4.5 pounds of strawberries and each pound has 18 berries, how many berries do you have?

Motivating Students In Math

Math seems to be one of those subjects that students sometimes need a bit extra motivation to get the work done.  It can be one of several reasons they don't want to finish an assignment but as the teacher, we need to help them get motivated.  

To begin with, motivation can be either extrinsic or intrinsic. Extrinsic refers to rewards given outside of the student's control.  Examples of extrinsic motivation include rewards such as pizza parties, movie nights, homework passes, or something similar.   

On the other hand, intrinsic motivation comes from within.  Examples of intrinsic motivation are the student wants to get A's only, needs to be the top of the class, or have a need to impress others.   For our students one of the reasons we use to motivate students intrinsically is to remind them they need the math class to graduate but it doesn't make much of an impression if they don't see a reason to graduate.  Consequently, we need different reasons and ways to motivate our students.

I'm always reading articles, looking to make myself a better teacher but on this topic, I ran into a list of suggestions that would never work with my students since it has the teacher showing students their missing pieces of knowledge, finding patterns, or setting up situations to encourage them to increase their knowledge.  I've gone with the suggestions I could implement with my own students.Not all the suggestions I'm presenting here will work in every case.  Some might be adjusted to fit your situation better and will depend on the students you have. 

Not all the suggestions I'm presenting here will work in every case.  Some might be adjusted to fit your situation better and will depend on the students you have.  One of the big ones is to establish relationships with your students so they know you are there when they need you and you are willing to answer questions.  Building a relationship with students is done both inside and outside of the classroom by greeting them everyday by name, asking about their day, weekend, etc, and even going to their games to cheer them on.  I do not like sports but I go so on Monday's I can make comments about that one play or the basket, or the steal, or the pin in wrestling.  

Think about cutting back or spreading out the lecture so you aren't requiring students to sit through it for 20 or 30 minutes.  It is much better to divide the material up while providing practice time between the lecture parts.  It is well known that today's students have a much shorter attention span than they had years ago.  Instead of lecturing, use task cards, question stacks, scavenger hunts, guided practice, pairs work, anything that is more hands on.  

Think about using math centers or stations.  That is something we typically associate with elementary school but in middle school or high school they can be used effectively. Each center might have different problems or a different set of problems they can work on, something using manipulative or drawings, or each center focuses on a specific skill.  An example of this might be center one has students identify the parts of a coordinate plane.  The second station might review how to plot points with practice and the third station might have students practice graphing lines using tables. All skills are associated with graphing but each focuses on a different part.

The final suggestion is to give students a choice.  For instance instead of assigning 24 practice problems, let them choose 18 out of 24 problems so they feel as if they have a chance to do the ones they know how to do.  For a certain topic, they might have the choice of a task, a online quiz, or creating a flip grid video explaining how to do it.

These are some easily implemented suggestions and they can be customized for your students. Furthermore, these can be adjusted according to if your school is under COVID measures or have loosened up a bit. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

Nerdle

 

Nerdle is a new web based math game that has captured the attention of the public.  It is similar to wordles but uses equations.  Instead of finding words, you look for the 8 character equation within the 6 guess limit.  The game is challenging but engaging and maybe it is something we can use for engaging our students.  

There are only a few rules for the game.  There are eight "letters" or spaces to use.  The "letter" represents a number from 0 to 9 or one of the operations, or an equal sign.  The "word is a mathematically correct equation with the equal sign. The number to the right of the equal sign is a number. 

It also assumes that you are following all order of operations so you need to multiply before adding.  The final rule is that order of the answer has to match exactly.  So if 15 + 20 = 35 is what the program is looking for, it won't accept 20 + 15 = 35 because it doesn't see it as correct. In addition, it uses color coding to let you know if your guess is correct.  If the "letter" is correct, it will turn green, if it is correct but in the wrong location, it will turn purple, and black if it is not there at all.  Every guess has to be mathematically accurate such as 25 = 3 * 7 + 4.

Nerdle opened on January 20th of this year.  It was created by a data scientist who came up with the idea during a conversation with his 14 year old daughter who wanted to know why wasn't there a wordles type game for math people. So he and his daughter worked out the rules and name. His son worked out all the possible equations that would work within the situation.  With a bit of help from colleagues and friends, they launched the site.   Since its release it has become wildly popular and used by teachers in their classrooms.  There is also instant nerdle but you only have one chance to get it correct.  

Each day, the site releases one new puzzle out of 17,723 possible combinations which is enough to last 48 years.   For those who get frustrated easily and don't have the patience to work through the whole process, there are sites that work it out and share the solution. They will tell you what one it is such as puzzle 26.  This is something students will discover quickly is let them work it out on line since many of them use "cheat" sites to help them through certain games.

If you have students who need a bit more of a challenge, let your students try the current puzzle to see how they do.  Go check it out, give it a try, let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

Valentines Day Math

 

Today is Valentines day and I like offering activities that use Valentine's Day as their focus.  It makes a nice change and allows students to have a bit of fun. I tend to go to Yummy Math for ideas because they always seem to have something.  

For instance, they have one that deals with those sweetheart candies.  Those heart shaped ones that come in pastel colors complete with messages like "I love you."  According to the activity, NECCO, the company that makes them, went bankrupt in 2018.  Within two years, another company bought the machinery, shipped it to Ohio, and began producing the candies again.  The activity has students answering questions about this candy before the company went bankrupt.  Some questions require students to figure out how much is made per month, or a per heart cost. They also ask students to draw conclusions.

Another activity has students reading and interpreting data off of two different infographics.  One infographic looks at where flowers are grown while the other looks at the cost of roses in several different International countries.  In addition, there are questions associated with each infographic that ask student to interpret data.  There are also questions asking students about how many hours must they work at a certain rate to buy a dozen roses in a different county.

Then there is the activity to help students work on estimation by asking students to estimate the number of food cans used in building a 3 dimensional heart.  Students are asked to look at a picture, estimate the number of cans used in the construction before watching a time lapse video showing how it was built. Students are asked to make more estimates after watching the video and they have to explain how they came up with their estimate.

For those who love to cook, there is an activity on creating a heart shaped raspberry flavored cake. They see how a square cake and a round cake are put together to form the heart.  Students are then asked to use information on cake batter to figure out how much cake batter is needed for various sized cakes. The amounts include fractions so they get some practice with real situations.

For chocolate lovers, one of the activities shows a heart shaped, bat shaped, and a turtle shaped chocolates on a grid and students are asked to determine which one is the largest in size.  Students are also asked to explain how they determined the greatest and least volume pieces.  It is a good exercise for students to explain their thinking.

There are several other exercises so teachers have a chance to select the one that works best for their students.  We know something might be rated as 8th grade but due to the pandemic, students may not be quite there.  In addition, the activities have students practicing different skills.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

Warm-up

 If it takes 3.5 pounds of grapes to make one quart of juice and each pound of grapes cost $2.99, how much does it cost to buy enough grapes for one quart of juice?  5 quarts of juice?

Warm-up

 

If it takes 3.5 pounds of grapes to make one quart of juice, how many pounds of grapes will be needed to make 5 quarts of juice?