Thursday, March 7, 2013

Snow Day!

It seems like it's been years since we've had a snow day. Oh, wait. It has been years! And then yesterday a miracle occurred. The snow that was predicted actually came... it didn't start until 10 pm-ish and continued through the night. Everyone knows that it's all about the timing, right?!

After being rudely awoken by my 6-year old at 8:30, I sent a tweet out to my classes:

Do some math on your snow day! Send me a pic of you doing math in the snow. Make a unit circle, calculate the diameter of a snow man, etc.

Tweet or email me your pictures before midnight. And have fun!

(I also posted it on schoology (our online portal) so that everyone had a chance to see it... not just those on twitter.)

It took a few hours (I guess they got to sleep in!) but then I started receiving some pictures. You gotta love when kids do math on their day off!

Here are some of the entries:


I did this a couple of years ago, too. 

I'm bummed (but not surprised) that none of my Algebra 1 students did anything.


Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Saturday, March 2, 2013

My Weekly Tags (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted by at No comments:

Monday, February 25, 2013

Paths

Without going into too much (well any, actually) detail, I wanted to share this quote that a friend sent me a week or so ago that I've been thinking about a lot lately.


I have a formula for knowing if a next step is the right one for you:

If you feel both excited and scared, that is it. If you're just excited and not afraid, there is no challenge, no stretching, no initiation; you are still in your safe zone, and growth is unavailable. If you're just afraid, there is no positive motivation. Why walk through a fear unless there is something you are walking toward? But if you are simultaneously turned on and frightened, do it and watch your growth skyrocket.

Alan Cohen
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Polar Graphs

imageimageimageimageimageimage
imageimageimageimageimageimage
imageimageimageimageimageimage
imageimageimageimageimageimage

Polar Graphs 2013, a set on Flickr.

The results of the precalc kids' polar graphs. They turned out really neat!

Posted by at 6 comments:

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Playing with Polar Equations

It's been fun the past few days to show the precalc kids what their calculators can do. We started with parametric equations were fun to play with, and now we've moved on to polar equations.

I found a parametric equation that produced a heart after a quick google search on Valentine's Day. Some of my precalc kids embellished it a bit.

I don't always do a lot with the polar equations, but this year after I discovered that desmos would graph polar equations (and you can add sliders to help you show the different options on the rose and such) I thought it might be fun to take some time and investigate.  On Friday I gave them this worksheet that has some really cool graphs on it.  I edited it so that the kids couldn't see what the graph would produce. Lots of oohs and aahs were heard!

Then last night because I had oodles of spare time on my 3-day weekend (ha!) I sat and typed this up. (I stole borrowed a lot of this from this worksheet I found online. Don't let the comic sans font dissuade you from checking it out.) I figure we'll spend a couple of days on it in class, and their own polar equation design is due on Thursday.


I was talking with some friends last night... it was nice to have a "3-day" weekend, because it really gave me a 2-day weekend, as opposed to the normal 1-day weekend that we all usually get. It's not just me that dedicates Sundays (or in this week's case, Monday) to school work, right?


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Saturday, February 16, 2013

My Weekly Tags (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

What to do?

I'm reaching the end of my rope with my Integrated Algebra 1 class.

Aside from one or two boys (depending on the day) their behavior isn't that bad. If you walked in my room you'd mostly see what looks like good things going on. Either we're reviewing old material or learning new stuff. Kids are quiet. (Except for that one kid... but you know.)

The problem?

They're not listening. They look like they're listening. They act like it. When I ask a question people raise their hand to answer.  But nothing's going in.

Today we had shortened classes because of a 2-hour late arrival (for inservice). On Monday we'd started some exponent rules (short cuts, I called them) and I wanted one more day today to review them again.  Kids were saying this would be the easiest quiz.  Awesome! I thought.

Before I passed out the assignment, I asked everyone to look at me. I told them that instead of doing the whole worksheet that I was giving them, I wanted to them to do one side only. I showed them which side and even told them what it said at the top (while walking around so everyone could see). I told them that if they didn't hear my instructions I was going to make them do the whole assignment.

I passed out the papers.

As I was doing that, at least five kids asked me if we were doing the whole thing.  Really?!

I told them yes.

Right now 7 out of 17 kids are passing.  And it has me wondering what I'm doing wrong.
Posted by at 7 comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)