iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

A D minus…

I made sure that I saw that “minus” after the D. Not saying I wouldn’t have written this article without it, but the inclusion of that seemed petty, filled with an almost cartoonish malice a la some dark authoritarian figure in Pink Floyd’s nightmarish state of education.

The real gatekeeper in math education is not algebra. The real gatekeeper of math education is fractions. It’s where alienation begins…

So, like with Newton’s Third Law of Motion — for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction — this article is my reaction."

Learning math online isn’t always easy! Luckily there are some great math websites for teaching math virtually We’ve gathered a list of teacher-approved sites that includes resources, games, freebies, and innovative programs for teaching math.

Here are the best math websites, according to teachers.

The month of December is a crazy time of year in the classroom. The kids are excited, and the teachers are excited too. Fortunately, there’s some easy ways to add seasonal spice to your math classroom. Some simple adjustments, like adding seasonal clip art to your work or bringing in some Christmas school supplies as prizes, can go a long way. You have to walk a fine line of not getting the students distracted, but at the same time bringing that seasonal cheer into the class. Students definitely appreciate the effort and will be a little more engaged at a time of year that is otherwise full of distractions.

ExploreLearning Gizmos provides over 400 math and science online simulations that power inquiry and understanding. It has a free Gizmos account available for science and math educators with a curated collection of Gizmos that change every January/July. Aligned to NGSS and state standards, each Gizmo comes with teacher guides and customizable lesson materials to help teachers and students delve deeper into the material.

In real life, ordering pizza for a group of people involves having a conversation about what people like, how much they can eat, how much they want to spend and whether pineapple really belongs on pizza.

But in the context of a traditional maths class, the concept of ordering a pizza typically becomes a problem like this:

If one pizza serves four children, how many pizzas do we need for a class of 28 children?

An alarming number of Australian students don’t choose mathematics in the senior school years. Figures from 2017 – the most recent available – show only 9.4% of Australian students in years 11 and 12 were enrolled in extended mathematics. This is the lowest percentage in more than 20 years.

Surveys of senior students indicate they believe maths is too hard, too guarded by a rigid set of rules and not applicable to real life.

Clearly, the way we teach is turning students off mathematics. But an inquiry-based approach can make maths relevant and interesting.

Learning for your kids is a hard endeavor if not done properly. And what’s the way, you ask? Well, it usually means involving them in some fun activity through which teaching is seamlessly included. One such example is math using Lego pieces! Division, multiplication, fractions they all seem so easy now, don’t they? As simple as a game, math concepts will be so easily explained to little ones, just look at the featured picture to convince yourself this is true. Who would have thought Lego toys can be used for educational purposes? Well, we are glad to have the opportunity to share this with you. Show it to your fellow educators or parents who struggle with their kids’ math.

When we think of Google Maps it is usually to get driving directions for a trip we need to take. However, Google Maps provides directions and other details for more than just driving a car. Specifically we can use it for riding a bike.

Seventh-grader Ellie Snyder always hated math. Nevertheless, when she heard about a game that combined math and athletics, she thought, “Why not? I’ll try it.” Her best friend, Olyvia Marshall, already loved math. Both girls signed up for the new Flagway team at Mansfield City Schools in Ohio.

“We were totally unprepared,” Ellie said of their first practice. “We wore jeans and hoodies.”

Flagway is a game that involves factoring numbers and categorizing them based on the Möbius function. Players use their solutions to navigate a color-coded course and place flags on the correct spot. Teams try to solve as many problems as possible in each round to score the most points.

Teachers know that students learn a tremendous amount from scrutinizing their mistakes, but getting them to take the time to stop and reflect is a challenge. Some teachers have stopped giving grades altogether to try to refocus class on learning instead of on grades. For others, that's too extreme. Leah Alcala, a seventh- and eighth-grade math teacher at King Middle School in Berkeley, California, developed a grading strategy that falls somewhere in the middle.

"What I was finding when I was handing back tests the old way, where I put a grade on it, was kids would look at their grade, decide whether they were good at math or not, and put the test away and never look at it again," Alcala says in a Teaching Channel video featuring her strategy.

Now when she returns tests, Alcala highlights mistakes and hands the tests back to students without a grade. She doesn't tell them what they did wrong; they have to figure that out.

"By not putting a grade on the test, I feel like what I'm allowing them to do is wrestle with the math they produced for me first and think of the grade second," Alcala said.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution requires that today’s youth are equipped with the skills, tools and mindsets needed to think creatively, leverage technology wisely and solve wicked problems collectively. Answering the call, leading education systems around the world are striving to integrate STEM, STEAM and Maker learning experiences into students’ daily lives. Globally, we are moving away from an antiquated industrial approach toward one more suitable for today’s digital natives.

Recent thinking moves beyond the basic definition of STEM as Science, Technology, Engineering and Math toward positioning STEM/STEAM as an integrated learning experience that leverages knowledge from traditionally siloed subjects such as math, science and even art and the humanities, in order to creatively solve complex human problems while employing new technologies and developing innovative thinking capacities. Applying “soft skills” such as creativity, collaboration, communication and emotional intelligence to technical STEM knowledge unlocks the potential for purposeful and impactful innovation.

"After dissecting our math lessons for over 3 years, we came to realize that we could classify the most important elements required to create memorable math moments in a 3-part framework we call “Making Math Moments That Matter”:

• Spark Curiosity
• Fuel Sense Making
• Ignite Your Next Moves

This framework is not intended to be three specific steps that must be followed in order, but rather three overarching elements that must be present in some form to ensure your lessons make math moments that matter to your students.

Let’s dive into each part of the framework to unpack each element."

On math worksheets, numbers are usually neat and tidy. In the real world, not so much. Whether it’s polling data, analysis of investment options or calculations for timed traffic lights, real-world math can be messy. “If you give those kinds of numbers in homework you’re a mean teacher,” said teacher Victor Hernández. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to worry about that complaint much. Hernández works at Science Leadership Academy, a public magnet school in Philadelphia, where students gather and apply real data to hands-on projects throughout the curriculum. In January, Hernández and two colleagues shared some of the benefits of project-based learning with math teachers attending EduCon 2020, SLA’s annual school innovation conference.

Join 1000s of dedicated educators like you in this VIRTUAL CONFERENCE guaranteed to provide you with high impact math strategies for your classroom. 

NOVEMBER 16th & 17th 2019

GRADE LEVELS: K – 12

If you've ever figured out how much a shirt cost from the 30% off rack, you are a math person.

If you've ever estimated how much water you drank in a day, you are a math person.

If you've ever made any sort of budget of any kind, you are a math person.

If you've ever calculated exactly what time you'd need to get out of bed to still get to work on time, you are a math person.

We are all math people! 

"With the rise of new trends such as a flipped classroom and whole brain teaching, there is an emphasis on getting students more actively involved in learning in the classroom. And whether or not you choose to fully embrace either of these methods, we can all agree that we want students participating as much as possible.

When students are actively participating, they are learning. In math classes, we typically involve students in the problem-solving side, but we don’t often expect them to provide explanations.

When students have to write an explanation or explain their problem to someone else, they develop a deeper understanding of the concept. Or, if there are any misconceptions, they are discovered and can be easily corrected.

As a middle school math teacher, I loved incorporating writing and speaking into my classroom. I found that requiring my students to provide verbal or written explanations not only helped their understanding but also made class a lot more interesting and fun.

Here are ten ways to use writing and speaking to help your students develop a deeper understanding of math:"

“I don’t like math,” my students commonly say. The alternative high school in rural Colorado where I’ve been working for the last two-and-a-half years serves students ages 14 to 20, who come to us when they have not done well in traditional environments since we have more freedom to use creative instructional methods to meet their needs.

Thinking about that comment, I used to ask myself, “How would the students’ attitudes toward math change if there was an opportunity to experience a different side of math, one that involved hands-on learning, promoted teamwork, and ended in a product to be proud of?” I thought I could use Rubik’s Cubes to facilitate camaraderie among my math-anxious and math-eager students, based on my own love of the popular puzzle. And after learning about students creating mosaics of historical figures, famous landmarks, and animals out of the cubes, I saw a way to promote critical thinking and algorithmic problem-solving.

A program that scaffolds math with reading and writing has a formerly struggling elementary school in the Bronx dramatically outperforming the state in math.