Teach My Lesson - MTBos Week 4

The fourth and final week of the #MTBoS Blogging Initiative is here.  I am sitting at the South Dakota Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference, wrapping up my thoughts from the event.  My co-teacher Jarrod and I presented at two sessions yesterday.  The second was titled "Why You Need to Bring Desmos Into Your Classroom."  We found that there are a number of teachers who do not yet know about the Desmos Teacher site and the activities that can be found there.

Which leads me my version of "Teach My Lesson."  

If you're new to Desmos, do the following... go to student.desmos.com.  Enter code "5xy6".  Complete the activity.  This lesson actually follows a different lesson that I do that introduces students to transformations of functions.  (For that activity, enter code "xsnx".)

If you're already a teacher.desmos.com user, here are the links that you can use to customize these two activities.

Transformation of Functions

Standard Form of Quadratic Functions

Desmos has so much potential for exploring mathematics, especially ones algebraic in nature.  I have found that students gain a lot of ownership of the math involved in these activities.  It's important to have students reflect and summarize their discoveries as part of these lessons.

If you happen to use either of these, I'd love to hear feedback.  Best of luck!

Better Questions

I know, I know.  Week 3 of the 2016 Blogging Initiative has long come and gone.  It's nearly the end of week 4!  I apologize for the tardiness.

I love the topic of "Better Questions" not only because the types of questions you ask can really dictate the type of classroom and style of teaching you have, but also because I need to continue to grow in the area of questioning.  Blogging about questioning will help me re-focus on the types of questions I'm asking my students.

This past fall, I presented a training module to HS / MS math teachers that focused on Effective Questioning.  The module brings to light the four levels of questions defined in NCTM's Principles to Actions (2014).

Question Type		Description
1	Gathering Information	Students recall facts, definitions, or procedures.
2	Probing Thinking	Students explain, elaborate, or clarify their thinking, including articulating the steps in solution methods or the completion of a task.
3	Making the Mathematics Visible	Students discuss mathematical structures and make connections among mathematical ideas and relationships.
4	Encouraging reflection and justification	Students reveal deeper understanding of their reasoning and actions, including making an argument for the validity of their work.

I've set the goal of asking more level 3 and 4 in my classroom, including on assessments.  These types of questions are sometimes tricky to create and grade.  Here is an example of a question that I asked my algebra 2 students.

I consider this a level 3 question due to asking students to make connections between the factors, solutions, and zeros on the graph.

Some example of student work:

Student 1: Excellent.

Student 2: This student did not understand the connection between the zeros of the graph and solutions of the equation.

My Favorite: Linear Regression & Movies

Week 2 of the #MTBoS challenge: "My Favorite".

There are many lessons and activities that I have that could qualify as "My Favorite", but since I haven't blogged about this one yet, I'll go with it.

For the past couple of years, I used an activity I found on Yummy Math to help apply linear regression to a real world context.  I modify the activity just a bit by changing some of the movies to some of my favorites.  (If you haven't check out Yummy Math yet, I'd recommend it.  A lot of the site is free, but I'd recommend paying the $20 per year for full access.  The best thing about Yummy Math is that they're always updating their activities.)

Using Desmos, it's very quick and easy to create regression equations.  Students are asked to find some of the data from their own favorite movies, which completely draws them into the activity.

There is a lot of opportunity for rich discussion in the activity.  Some examples of really great discussions I've had w/ this activity:

• Why are some movies way above or below the line of best fit?  What would cause that sort of behavior?
• How does inflation / release dates play a role in this data?
• Why do Disney animated movies tend to be below the line of best fit?
• Why are sequels typically below the line of best fit?
• Are most of the top-grossing films of all time (Titantic, Avatar, and now Star War 7) above the line of best fit?
• When looking at a series of films (ex: Fast & the Furious), why do some fall above the line while others fall below?

Lastly, I love the activity because it leaves a bit of a cliffhanger.  Each year I do this, I wait and see what is the #1 movie in America during the past weekend and include that as part of my data set.  This past year, it was Hotel Transylvania 2.  At the end of the activity, I have students write down their prediction for the total gross amount for that movie.  Of course, there is no right answer at the time since the movie is still in theaters.  So we wait and occasionally check on it throughout the semester.  When the dust settles, we look back and see which student was closest to correct and award a prize.  

Title	Opening Gross ($ in millions)	Total Gross ($ in millions)	Opening Date
The Avengers	207.438708	623.279547	5/4/12
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	158.074286	424.668047	11/22/13
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2	169.189427	381.011219	7/15/11
Jurassic World	208.806270	650.493056	6/12/15
The Sandlot	4.918712	32.434006	4/9/93
Toy Story 3	110.307189	415.004880	6/18/10
Dumb & Dumber	16.363442	127.175374	12/16/94
Frozen	67.391326	400.738009	11/22/13
Avengers 2: Age of Ultron	191.271109	458.924272	5/1/15
Major League	8.836265	49.797148	4/7/89
Hotel Transylvania 2	48.464322		9/25/15

One Good Thing

I'm giving semester tests today.  For algebra 2, I allowed students to have one page of paper to be used for a "cheat sheet" to reference during their test.  I collect them from the students when they are finished with the test, mainly so that they don't write things down during the final and then leave and tell their friends what to expect on the test.  (I not naive - I know kids go and talk to their friends about the final, but this way they at least don't have a way to write things down.) 

If you have never done this before, it's really quite interesting what type of cheat sheets students make without any guidance.  (I simply tell them that they can write down whatever they'd like to help them on the final.)  Some students have really great reference sheets, others have very little written down, and yet others have nothing to turn in.

Today, I had one student have something very cool written on their cheat sheet.  We've talked a lot this semester about Growth Mindset.  Here is the cheat sheet:

"YOU CAN DO IT!!" - One good thing from today.

Vikings / Seahawks win probability

Growing up in Minnesota, it's a state law that you must cheer for the local professional sports teams (assuming that you follow sports).  Being the law abiding citizen that I am, I've had to endure numerous heart breaks and losing seasons from my beloved Vikings and Timberwolves.  (I'm also a closet bandwagon Twins fan, but don't know enough about hockey to follow the Wild.)

Today's Vikings loss was as gut-wrenching as any since the 1998 NFC title game.  As I browsed through ESPN tonight, I did happen to stumble onto this crazy Win Probability graph.  I've seen these graphs before; the best ones are when teams have miracle-like wins, such as today's game.

I'm thinking I can use this graph down the road when learning about probability and / or graphs of functions.

For the article that describes some of the swings, click here.  It hurts to be a Vikings fan.

Desmos Marble Slides: Parabolas

Desmos just released their newest set of activities on Tuesday, aptly named "Marbleslides".  I decided to use the last day before Christmas vacation to let my algebra 2 students give the Parabola challenges a try.  I forced students to work as pairs instead of having them work independently.  I have found that my room is very quiet when students work on Desmos activities by themselves.  I wanted more collaboration and thinking out loud; I wanted more noise.

It appears Desmos hit a home run with their latest release.  More than once I had students arguing about whose turn it was to run the controls.  Many students left class with a new addiction.

Desmos Activity Builder Part 2

In case you missed my first post 5 short weeks ago about Desmos Activity Builder, please feel free to check it out.

It appears as though Santa came early because this was on my wish list.  Great new via Twitter today:

We are now able to copy someone else's activity and customize it to make it fit our specific needs.

For example, we used this activity on rotations by Andrew Stadel in geometry class a few weeks ago.  I now have the ability to duplicate the activity and make small tweaks to fit the needs of my specific students.  I don't have to try to re-create the magic that Andrew already created, yet I now have the ability to put my personal spin on these activities.

One final thought:
This open sharing of resources that is taking place is so powerful.  I love it that the people at Desmos and anyone who shares their wonderful creations through Desmos are not concerned about getting paid or someone else copying their ideas.  Sites like teacherspayteachers.com have some great resources, but it bothers me when teachers aren't willing to share resources with each other without getting something ($$$) in return.  The folks sharing via Desmos are willing to share resources for others to use and potentially for others to improve.  It's such a different mindset when compared to those teachers willing to share but only if they get something in return.

Happy customizing in activity builder!