Girl Math

Desmos is such an awesome tool in the math classroom. This is a perfect lesson for students to show off their creativity while demonstrating their understanding of conics.  In this project, students watch a YouTube tutorial on restrictions. Then students are given the freedom to draw whatever they want.  Desmos makes it so easy to keep all student's projects in one place. We can quickly grade their submissions following the rubric given to the students right in Desmos.  We each have one section of PC, so we like to have a competition for the best drawing. Since you can easily "anonymize" the submissions in Desmos, students can judge fairly. I have my students vote on the best drawing in her class, and her class votes on the best in mine. This gives the students a little incentive to impress their peers.  Not everyone has the best artistic ability, but students enjoy the challenge. One thing that you have to watch out for is cheating. Students can google imag...

For this activity, students are completing stations around the room- all dealing with parametric functions.  Each problem they complete will eliminate a who, with what, and where answer so they can solve this Clue-like game! If you're at all like me, when parametric functions were introduced into the Pre-Calculus curriculum, I was like "whut?"  At no point in my educational career (and trust me, I was in school longer than the average bear) did I remember ever learning this topic.  Thankfully, Google was there to guide me.  Over the years, I've become more comfortable teaching parametric functions and because of this, I've been able to grow my activity repertoire.  If you want to make a copy of the activity document, click here .  Included are the stations, answer choices to be eliminated, and a work space for students. The first sheet of the document just has all of the problems in one location... for those worksheet type of folks. I print out the st...

Another successful GooseChase scavenger hunt! It's the end of the year, and the students need some fun. Since our school purchased the GooseChase subscription, I try to use the app as much as possible.  Before the scavenger hunt begins, I have the students work on problems in the classroom. They check their answers with me before they leave the room. The groups take a small whiteboard to write the answers to go with their missions.  I created about 35 missions so that there are no ties.  The only problem - trying to come up with different missions each time.  My kids really enjoy getting out of the classroom. I also enjoy watching the submissions as they come in! The videos are the best!  Here is the math portion: Sine & Cosine Graphs/Applications  Here are some of the missions that I sent my students out to do: Missions   Of course - not all of these will work with your school, but at least it gives some ideas.  ~RJ

I love teaching circle trig; however, it's the end of the semester, and I'm running out of time. There are so many activities that I would love to do, but oh well. Maybe I can find time next year! Haha! Teacher jokes! :)  I wanted to spend a lot of time with sine and cosine applications. I think that it's important that students get a ton of practice. We have been spending about 2 days so far on these types of problems.  Typically with madlibs, you create the paragraph by choosing parts of speech before you even know the story. In this math activity, students must complete the multiple choice questions with answers that correspond to a word. Once they find the correct answer, they place the word in the correct blank.  In the end, students have a story that doesn't make any sense at all. However, this assignment allows me to assess student knowledge quickly, and I can address any needs right away!  I typically try to give practice where students walk arou...

As always, I was able to knock this lesson out of the park... thanks to Desmos!  It is so easy to check the students' progress through the teacher dashboard.  And if you want, you can project this screen so that students can see if they are correct with their card sorts.  What was my teaching life like before Desmos?  Not like this! Because I do so many activities in class, my students have gotten in the habit of asking, "What are we going to do today?".  And not in the annoying teenage/eye-roll fashion, but in the I'm pretty excited about coming to math class fashion.  But they weren't always this way.  Trust me, I begin on day 1 doing some sort of an activity in all of my classes.  I want them to know that I expect all students to be engaged 100% during class time.  Unfortunately, most of my learners did not get this excitement (that's what I'm calling it anyway) in their previous math classes.   Back to today... my Desmos a...

Using stations for EOY review is way better than handing out " Frickin' Packets " (IMHO).  The students are able to collaborate and discuss tasks as opposed to sitting in silence and drooling on themselves (trust me, this is a real thing).  With the students talking, more people are engaged- and those students who sometimes do not speak in whole class or ask questions from the teacher during quiet independent work tend to find their voices in small group settings.  Win-win for everyone! This particular review for the AP Statistics course includes a "Who Dunnit" theme where students are prompted to find out who killed Jay Walker, where, and with what instrument.  In the past, I have thought it was fun to add teachers from my school as part of the suspect pool.  However, keeping up with our turnover rate got to be too much for my hectic schedule and feeble mind.  So I now use characters or famous people. This activity ( click here to copy it to your Goog...

I needed one more project for the semester, and I wanted the students to be able to move around. They sit for way too long!  I remembered seeing an activity that required students to search the school and take pictures of triangles. Well, I thought that could make for a good project! In groups of four, the students used one iPad and were sent out on a mission - find objects in the shape of a right and oblique triangles.  I thought that groups of 4 would be too big for the presentation portion, so I divided up the big group into pairs once they were back in the classroom.  For the right triangle, students were required to find one angle and one side, and for the oblique, they had to start off with finding one angle and two sides.  As for the sides, I wanted to make it a little fun! I sent each group a different emoji to act as the scale instead of using a ruler. (I created a Google Form that students filled out once they returned. The form asked for their em...

About a month ago I gave PD to a group of higher-up math teachers from across my state (I'm still wondering why I wasn't chosen to be part  of this group 😐).  I was paired to work with another teacher from a different part of my state, Debbie McNally , and we had about a week to pull something together- via email.  Of course, we nailed the presentation- even with technical issues.  Who knew my district had blocked Teacher Desmos? Well, Debbie had created this investigation for her students and RJ and I took it and made it our own by turning it into a HyperDoc.  Feel free to make a blank copy of the student instructions by clicking here .  Once you get into it, you'll see how great of a tool this is to aid students into exploring and understanding how polar equations relate to conic sections and other types of graphs.  And some of the kids just liked making up their own graphs- but hey, they were learning and having fun! We really liked giving this...

Since we don't believe in homework, we try to create fun activities that allow students to practice what they have learned. This activity is a review of all conic sections.  Each conic section is not that bad, but when you put them all together - students freak out. There are so many formulas, each with minor details to remember.  This could just be a regular station activity, but we created it with a little twist. Students answer multiple choice questions dealing with all types of conics. Each answer corresponds to a letter. Once finished, we hand the kiddos a riddle sheet and they unscramble the letters to answer the riddle.  I think the hardest part is the unscrambling of the letters especially if the students have an incorrect answer. I try to walk around and drop hints so that they can revisit a certain station.  The students appreciate that this isn't just a boring worksheet. This also allows students to move around the classroom - which we all know d...

A CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED - and my students are the detectives in this game of Clue. Since I don't give homework and practice is important - I try to find interesting formative assessments. Clue is perfect for this!  I hang all of the cards on the wall, and students must walk around answering multiple questions. Each answer corresponds to a name, weapon, or location. Once they get an answer - that suspect, weapon, or location has been eliminated. When they are finished with all stations, the blanks should reveal the who, where, and what.  While I make my kids show all work, this activity allows me to quickly evaluate if students comprehend the material. The students also enjoy figuring out who dunnit. In the past, the suspects were real teachers at my school, but then they would leave, and I had to change the names again and again. This time, I just went with generic names - but I think that the students were more involved when I used teachers that they knew. ...

I have struggled with teaching ambiguous case in the past. I mean - the students just don't see the connection. Even though my lesson isn't completely perfect now, I think this activity that I found online really helps the students to visualize the triangles. (At least half of my students fully understood - which is way more than usual with just notes.)  I tweaked the activity a little -  Law of Sines: Ambiguous Case   Here's the gist: Students move and use the strip of paper as side a on their triangle. The students must go through some scenarios with the strip. In the end, they should see that depending on the length of side a, zero, one, or two triangles could be formed.  There were still some students that didn't understand the second triangle, but I really think that the visual aspect of this activity helped some that I wouldn't have reached otherwise.  This was a short lesson. If I have more time next year, I think I will add on to this activity...

Matched pairs design is one of those inference topics that can be a little tricky for learners; many students want to try a 2-sample t-test for means.  As an AP Reader, I remember a few years ago when paired data was on the National Exam.  It was bad.  So few responses actually used the correct procedure 😕 So if there's a way to get my learners to differentiate between these two types of inference (and make it stick), I'm going to do it! I first found this activity on mathcoachblog  (Hallway Bowling) and completely stole it from Bob Lochel- making my own tweaks, of course.  My classes have over 30 students, so bowling in the hallway can lead to some major disturbing of other classes; therefore, I changed it to to the breezeway.  Plus, I am lucky to live in a location where we can play (play = do math) outside pretty much year-round, so taking it to the breezeway was a no-brainer. This activity is the first time my students will conduct an inference p...

I previously did a speed dating activity with solving exponential and logarithmic equations. I really liked how students were teaching each other. So I decided to try it again with solving right triangle trig applications.  For this activity, I didn't have an application problem per person, instead per group. In groups of 2-3, students had to answer the card given to them. Then had to move to another group - switch cards and answer the question.  I assigned roles to each member, but to hold each student accountable, when they switched the roles also switched. (In groups of three - here are the roles: an encourager, a recorder, and a checker.) The encourager had to use probing questions to help facilitate the other group if struggling, the recorder had to write down the work, and the checker had to look over the work before they could move on.  I ordered some buzzers from Amazon, and loved being able to push them to make the groups switch. (That's one thing that wa...

I ran across the idea for this activity somewhere along the way and thought it was great, so I created a version for my AP Statistics class.  I used this as a review for one-sample inference (confidence intervals and significance tests for means and proportions).  Basically, it helps the students compartmentalize which formulas to use and where to find it on their calculators.  Note: this activity is designed to allow learners to familiarize themselves with components of inference, it is not like an AP free response question.  But of course, it's fun (in my eyes anyway)! Each group of three will receive a deck of cards.  The cards are color-coded and the idea is for students to work on the same color at the same time.  Each student must find the answer to their card and then take the sum of all three answers for the entire group.  If they are correct, the group can move to the next color; otherwise, they will need to work as a team to figure out who ...

In Pre-calculus, we have done physical and digital breakouts. So why not combine both components for this review activity!  Students walk in to see a breakout box, computer, and a clue at their station. The clue directs the students to a hidden envelope hidden around the room  (each group has a different location)   which contains a flash drive with a video we created using PowToon . The video describes the mission with an embedded clue to unlock the box.  In the box, students find a directional key, another log mission, markers (taped with log and exponential equations), a flash light (with no batteries), and two more locked boxes. The students must answer the questions from the log mission to open one of the smaller boxes - this gives a hint to solving the equations on the markers. Plus - it has has the batteries for the flashlight and a hidden message with invisible ink explaining the order of the colors. The colors correspond to a directional key.  ...

This is such a simple, yet fun activity!  The only thing you need is a blow-up globe beach ball (cheap on Amazon).  I have no idea where I first saw this, but I'm so glad I found it! When doing this activity, the students have already been introduced to confidence intervals for proportions.  And I use this as my lead-in to significance tests for proportions.  Here is what I have projected for the class (use animations so it's not all on the screen at once). Our first goal is to determine a guess for the amount of water on the Earth’s surface. Stand (or sit) in a circle and toss the globe back and forth.  After each catch, check the tip of your index finger from your dominant hand and call out “water” or “land”.  Make sure the record keeper can keep up with you! ☺ Toss the globe for about 50 tosses. Create a 95% confidence interval for the true proportion of water on the Earth’s surface. If we would like to be able to estimate the true proportion...

How is is possible to have so much fun at work?  GooseChase. Our school has recently purchased a license for teachers to use GooseChase and this has completely changed our outlook for this app!  In the past, we weren't able to allow multiple teams to participate and (frankly) it was a pain in the butt.  But now... look out!  We can GooseChase to no end 😆 For this activity, we had students solve these application problems dealing with exponential functions.  Once the students had completed them correctly, they were able to leave the classroom to complete their missions.  They had a blast, period. From the classroom, as a teacher, you can monitor the submissions as they come in.  I promise you, you will laugh... a lot.  We are including some of our favorite poses here. Good luck and have fun! ~RJ and SSB