Group items tagged

"Empower your students to think critically about data, ask meaningful questions, and communicate their conclusions."

Lesson ideas for this resource @ http://blogs.henrico.k12.va.us/waberry/2014/03/06/tuvalabs-datasets-to-promote-critical-thinking/

"How did Gladwell misconstrue it? Aside from not having copied the numbers from the actual paper correctly for his book? He says that there is a perfect correspondence between practice and the level of expertise a person attains. And you can't tell that from the paper. The 10,000 hours is an average of differences. You could have two people in any endeavor and one person took 0 hours and another took 20,000 hours, which is something like what happened with two high jumpers I discuss in the book. One guy put in 20,000 and one put in 0, so there's your average of 10,000 hours, but that tells you nothing about an individual. Now, Gladwell doesn't say there's no such thing as genetic talent. I think other writers are stricter than him. [Matthew Syed's] Bounce is a book that minimizes talent. Gladwell does say elite performers are more talented. One of the things that Ericsson criticizes Gladwell about is to say that 10,000 hours is some kind of rule. The paper just says that these performers by the age of 20, these performers have accumulated 10,000 hours but there's no where that says it's a magical number where that's when they become elite or anything like that. These people, by the time they go into their professional careers, have way more than that. That's just where they were when they're 20 as an average, not even to mention their individual differences."

"In order to help educators integrate technology effectively, we have compiled a list of technology tools focused on learning goals consistent with the CRCD framework. Unlike other lists that promote "cool tools," yet leave teachers wondering about purposeful educational integration, our list is driven by specific learning goals that promote critical-thinking, creativity, collaboration, and community-mindedness. " Great list of resources including sites for web based timelines, publishing writing online, guided research activities, etc.

This is the Newest webtool developed by Dan Meyer and Dave Major. Dan Meyer discusses the tool and task in a post on his blog here - http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=17503 I think this tool would be very engaging for students. Give them the task of finding the quickest route, and they will go nuts with it. I see two main applications for this particular tool/task: You could use this tool as an introduction to angles. Put it on the board, give the kids the task, and have them discuss how they would tell the ship captain to navigate around the buoys. When non-mathematical language and vocabulary bogs down the ship's progress, overlay a grid/protractor and introduce the idea of angles. Have the kids play around with the tool to come up with the quickest route. Discuss the result of small differences in angle measurement on the ship's progress (each degree above the necessary increases the amount of time lost). This could lead into a discussion on the importance of precision… This would be an easy task to make over if you wanted to talk about slope and writing equations of lines (Algebra I). You could overlay a grid on the board, The kids could draw the lines in to get the ships around the buoys, write the equations, then you could talk about how cumbersome the equations are and how ships are actually piloted and bring in the idea of degrees/vectors (direction and angle). Not only does this tool help to teach angles/vectors, but it's also a tool to get students estimating (angles AND distance).

There are a lot of great problems here that could be used in math class. Starting class with one of these problems could be a great way to hook students into the lesson and have the students start generating their own questions and problem solving methods. Then, the math can be brought in appropriately. A lot of these problems seem to lend themselves to the "3 Act Task" model. A video/image representing the problem could go a long way in getting kids hooked.

Short list of questions for teachers to use while problem solving

"Add "Would You Rather?" to your bookmarks. Phrasing math problems in terms of "Would You Rather" is simple and brilliant. I love this framework for three reasons:" Interesting framework for solving math problems. This post links to a resource of "Would you rather" problems that could be useful in a variety of different math courses.

This seems like a fun and interesting way to discuss/learn several different math topics. Here's a sample lesson plan that popped into my head when I saw this post: 1. Show to students a GoogleMap/GoogleEarth image similar to the one on the website, but more meaningful to you/them. For example, several different grocery stores around your house. 2. Ask the students, "Which one should I go to?" Have the students justify their answers using the image and mathematical topics that they have learned up to this point. 3. With appropriate questioning you could work in several mathematical topics here (I know I'm missing others as well…) a. Overlay a grid on the GoogleMaps and have the students give each of the locations points on an x,y axis. Use this information to determine distance. Have a conversation if this is the best way to determine which location is easiest to access. When students start to bring up the fact that even though some points are technically closer, but could be slower to get to, bring in… b. Rates, ratios, etc. Discuss how fast you could possibly travel on each route according to number of stop signs, streetlights, speed limit etc. Have students use this information to calculate the appropriate answer.

"A puzzle by Sam Loyd. The red strips are twice as long as the yellow strips. The eight can be assembled to form two squares of different sizes. How can they be rearranged (in the plane) to form three squares of equal size?" Interesting brainteaser or problem that could act as a warmup. You could make these strips into manipulatives in Inspire or give the students physical strips to help with the visualization process. I'm sure there's math here, I just don't know what it is...

I've never been a huge baseball fan, but I do like data. This interactive display shows the total expenditure of every Major League Baseball team (from 1998 out until a few years in the future). Clicking on a team in the top chart will break that expenditure down per player and show what each player makes per year. Just looking at this chart for a few minutes, I've come up with the following questions that could be used in a math class for a problem solving lesson. Some of these questions would also require the students to locate some additional data as well. * Is there a correlation between team expenditure and winning the Championship/making the playoffs/number of wins in a season? * What percent of a team's total expenses do "star players" take up? * Are star player's "worth it" for a baseball team? * How have team expenses changed over the past 15 years? * Are baseball players being paid more today than in the past or are their salaries just keeping up with inflation? * How much do today's baseball stars make in comparison to the stars of the late 90's and early 00's? Is this difference warranted? I'm sure there are plenty of better questions here that I'm missing.

compare and contrast tool