Order of Operations Footloose

The students have needed a lot of practice with the order of operations recently so I've had them move around > get an expression > evaluate an expression > return expression > repeat. Above is a video of a group evaluating an expression together.

Division of Fractions by Fractions

Howdy! The kids have been working on dividing fractions by fractions, as well as word problems! 

Before working on word problems, they created fraction kits using fractions strips for:

1 whole, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/8, 1/9, 1/10, and 1/12. 

The video above is a student attempting to model the solution to one of these problems.

Math Opinions

I decided to have a few students (like G and K from last year) share their opinion on what math is like for them this year and their attitude towards learning. A few more are coming! Stay tuned!

The Opposite of the Opposite

It's been a while since I've updated but currently my class is working with negative and positive integers/rational numbers.  In order to get my students to understand the concept that two negative signs create a positive sign (i.e. -(-3) = +3), I've decided to crank out the number line/coordinate plane! Unfortunately the coordinate plane I had last year got lost during the transition in moving from upstairs to downstairs, so I have to create a new one.

Below is a video of them ordering themselves from least to greatest after they understood that the opposite of an opposite is the equal to the number itself.

Unlike last year, many students have expressed interest in sharing their opinions on what math is like for them this year compared to last year. Now that there's a bit more time because of the holiday, I'll try to get to it by Wednesday!

Scavenger Hunt Part II

Now that we've been working on ratios and unit rates for a few weeks I decided to have the students participate in another scavenger hunt activity with variety of rate/unit rate problems. I have been extremely busy and have not had the time to post as frequently as I would like to. Teaching (student learning) seems to be a much bigger challenge this year than last for me. Trying to do my best.

Welcome Year Three~

Welcome back! My third year of teaching started on September 9th 2015. I'm certainly not a complete beginner anymore but I feel like I still have plenty of work to do. I have awesome students this year that are excited about being 6th graders, excited to be in a new school with new friends and new teachers. To start the year off I decided to lightly introduce scavenger hunts in my class where students get a chance to work together, move around and solve math problems. Take a look below!

Never Say You Can't!

Meet "Z". He's a student that struggles and feels as though math is "impossible" like plenty of other adolescents. While it took an immensely long time to get the job done, he managed to solve it all on his own, and his reaction is priceless. The following problem:

Mr. E has 7 packs of sugar and 14 packs of tea. He wants to make groups using the same number of sugar and tea packs, with none left over. What is the greatest number of groups he can make?

How many packs of sugar will be in each group?
How many packs of tea will be in each group?

Preparing for the New Year

While Summer '15 was certainly filled with laughter and joy, this is the final week. This is a short clip of what we did in week 2 (the Smartboard is now working and in daily use...).

Lately I've been preparing my mind, clearing my thoughts and thinking of things that worked and didn't work this year, and how I'll change them. This time, I want to create a classroom culture where more emphasis is placed on listening to whoever is talking, and somehow incorporate that into tokens. I also want to take Concept Constructions up a notch and incorporate it into tokens as well.

Because the tokens were so strong last year, I need to find ways that I can improve the system and make it more fun for the kids. This includes switching prizes from time to time, and added reinforcement to other positive behaviors that we need more of to run a successful math classroom.

The End of the Year

It's been over a month since I've posted. I spent a lot of time finishing up my thesis and I'm proud to say that within the time between this post and my last one, I've obtained my master's degree in Education (MS.Ed). I will also teach summer school and continue to teach 6th graders in the next school year! This year has taught me so much that I'll outline in another post later.

My students have grown and learned so much this year and have even surpassed my ability in many of the thinking and strategic games we play (i.e. Lightbot). More students have also fully completed Dragonbox 2. if I make a mistake while going over a problem (purposely or not), they will sometimes correct me.

Lastly, some students have taken the initative and asked me to teach them specific things in math. My highlight of the day "Mr. E, can you teach me geometry?" Not my favorite sub-topic in math but I am happy that there is a desire to learn and grow! We have been playing educational and/or practice games. Here are some of the more recent videos below:

P.S. - Is the power of multiplayer/network games in mathematics not apparent from the video below? Technology is such a strong tool in education and the level of engagement is unmatched. Ultimately, I want to take the time and use the experience I have with video games to create my own engaging game(s) for math. Coding comes first.

Getting our Own Data

The point of this lesson was for us to generate our own data and later create histograms, dot plots, and box plots using the data. Students played Mario Kart 8 and took the average number of points for each group of 4 players at the end of a race. They had to answer the following questions:

Considering variables are plentiful in Mario Kart 8, I thought that it'd be a good idea to mention how these things can cause us to make skewed conclusions considering so many factors could have affected the outcome (items and course obstacles are good example for Mario Kart). They struggled with conceptual questions that required them to compare the group average to each individual player's number of points.

The activity was fun, but I don't think the students got what I wanted them to get out of it. I really wanted them to understand that all of these different variables in the game can affect what place you come in, which in turn affects the number of points you will  get. Given this, it's hard to make a conclusion like "Mr. E is a better player than Mr. Campbell" because so many variables could affect the outcome. Only tiny portion of them were able to grasp that.

I am happy that I gave something new/different a shot! At the very least the kids had fun!