Girl Math

Yay - another Digital Breakout! I'm pretty proud of this one! These always take so long to develop and this was a beast. However, it was well worth it!  The topics include:  Characteristics of f(x) using f'(x) & f"(x) (inc,dec,concavity)   Related Rates Absolute and relative extrema  Mean Value Theorem  I created the breakout as a supplemental review for our unit test coming up tomorrow! Even though some students would rather have a pencil paper review, I feel that others may need an alternate approach. So, I decided to try both for this review. One day, students worked on a paper version review, and today, they did the breakout. I'm hoping to see an improvement in test grades! We will see!  Here is a link to the breakout. Try it out first and see if you like it! Link to Digital Breakout Teacher Notes   ~RJ

Who doesn't love a game of Clue? A couple of years ago, I created a stations review where students must determine who dunnit. This year, I converted that to a Deck.Toys activity.  Students move around the house, answering multiple choice questions. The answer choices correspond to a suspect, murder weapon, or a location. When a person, place, or thing is selected by the answer, they must write down the station number on the student worksheet AND type in the answer on Deck.Toys. Thus, finding the murderer, murder weapon, and the murder location when everything else has been eliminated.  At the end of the Deck.Toys, I created a sort where students must determine who dunnit . Deck.Toys makes it so easy to check on the student's progress! So, I can easily see which groups were correct!  If you don't like the Deck.Toys version, I have also included the link to the station activity.  Related Rates/Optimization (Deck.Toys version)   Related Rates/...

If you're looking for interesting ways to get your AP Statistics students involved with bivariate data, try this project. Students are asked to find data sets that make sense to use regression.  This is the hardest part for the kiddos because they struggle being creative and finding items that interest them yet still meet the criteria for bivariate data sets.  They usually Google the topic and choose the first set that pops up.  Of course, I figured that out pretty fast- now they must have n >  30.  This really helps in the long run because we use Google Sheets for all calculations and it's great having the students playing with large data sets not from a textbook.   This project ( make a copy here ) has the learners exploring visual displays, numerical summaries, and (of course) using context throughout.  They even use Sheets for finding, graphing, and interpreting residuals.   Overall, I enjoy this project as the learners get ...

I search the internet A LOT to find ideas. I had noticed teachers starting to do Two Truths & a Lie, so I thought I would try it with Calculus.  We have been discussing characteristics of functions and how to sketch the graphs of polynomials and rational functions using Calculus. I love this part of the unit - students finally see how calculus relates to topics that they have learned in the past. My students on the other hand aren't so happy...I hear all the time - We have a graphing calculator, why not use it? Thank you AP for making part of the exam calculator inactive so my students don't complain AS much since they know that it will be on AP exam. :)  The gist - students are given one function, instructions (I didn't use that this year), and a post-it note.  They found critical numbers, inflection points, increasing, decreasing, concave up, concave down, extrema, and sketched the curve for their ONE problem. I also made them write a justification for each ...

Vectors are so misunderstood by students... until now (hopefully)!  I have created a HyperDoc that introduces vectors through Vector, from Despicable Me .  Students watch a short video clip of Vector explaining why his name is Vector.  It's super cute and informative!  Of course, this activity gets a little more challenging! After the intro (Part 1), students are taken to an EdPuzzle video where they must answer a few questions, even though the instructions explicitly say to put answers in the HyperDoc, if you plan on using this activity, you may want to reiterate that point, or create a new EdPuzzle for your classroom.  This video was a good idea, but I have over 30 students in one room and only a handful of students had earbuds; so it got a little loud. Part 3 has students going to a Calculus 2 website that uses dot products in three dimensions on top of some other cool (in a math geeky way) stuff.  It's a challenge but very doable.  Plus, they c...

At some point in your high school math teacher career, I'm sure you've heard of this project.  I was introduced to it about 7 years ago from a former colleague who loved playing with math as much as I do.  I haven't used it in a while, not sure why though 😦.  But I pulled it back out again this semester- and it went well!  Feel free to make a copy for yourself; just click here . I only did Part 1 with my students.  It came down to lack of time and the class itself- we can't spend too much time on any one project, they get bored and lose interest pretty fast.  But I think Part 2 of this project would be great for an Honors Math 3 class with a little time on their hands! Here's the gist: students are asked to look at three different models of a roller coaster and evaluate different aspects of polynomials such as zeros, relative max/min, increasing/decreasing, and using values to find heights at certain time intervals.  On top of this, learner...