Quadrilateral Social Media Project

After we finished out our unit on quadrilaterals, I wanted the kids to do something project oriented, and I also wanted some updated student work on the walls. I had first heard of this project on Julia Finneyfrock's blog, and let me tell you, if you haven't read Julia's blog, go check it out! Anyways, Julia's blog led me to Tina Cardone's blog, which led me to a Google search and at Mrs. E Teaches Math's blog.  So I took some info from all of the blogs and created my own sort of project.

Here is what I required (loosely)

• Sign up for a shape (which I only allowed four students per shape, and it was first come first serve) 
• Make a social media profile 
• Twitter
• Facebook 
• SnapChat 
• Tinder (although it's hard to swipe right on paper) 
• Instagram 
• Dating Profile 
• Take 5 self portraits/tweets/etc. 
• Have around ten facts about quadrilaterals, but if it was 7-8, I was still okay with that. 
• Make the project neat and nice 

When I gave my students some creative freedom and made the project somewhat more lenient, I was pleasantly surprised, impressed, and proud of how creative my kids were and the product that they created. I even had several students ask to create real profiles on Twitter and Instagram, which I allowed. I am even going to post some on our school's Facebook page and on my own personal page. 

I definitely will do this project in the future, but I probably would do a couple of things differently. I think I needed some more stringent guidelines, but I think that might just be my very strong detail oriented personality trait coming out there. I also think that I wouldn't allow creating real social media profiles because it is harder for them to create their own pictures and harder to get their ten facts in with five portraits and to show interaction between profiles. 

Here is the handout for the project, and I am going to leave you with some pics of their projects. Let me know if you have done this project before, and I would love to see any of your kids's projects if you have done or will do this project.

Traveling Science Fair

On Friday, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory had a traveling science fair at the county's vocational school, and our students were invited to attend. I was really excited for this opportunity for our students. We met with our advisory groups at the start of first block, and then the bus came to get us around 8:45 to take us to the vocational school, which is about a five minute ride from the school. Students had the opportunity to tour six trailer size science exhibits, ranging from neutrons, research, and ecology. I didn't get to tour all of them, but I went through three or four of them.

Inside the vocational school, students had the opportunity to see live welding, live auto repair, machinery, and carpentry. I am not familiar with any of these fields, so I went and talked to the machinery teacher about how math was applicable to his field. He and I had a good conversation and talked about how students need to manipulate variables and solve equations in Ohm's Law.

I didn't get the chance to see the welding, but I went and walked through the auto mechanics exhibit, and I was completely lost. I went back into the main part of the vocational school and saw several of the vendors. I talked to some people with the University of Tennessee Geography Department and the Tennessee Geographic Alliance. I took a geography class during the one semester I attended UT, and I absolutely loved the class! I was even shocked to learn that the professor was still there. I then went to an exhibit on 3D printing, and I even got mistaken for a student!

Here are a couple of pics, and I am representing by wearing my Twitter Math Camp shirt! #TMC16

Exponential Growth and Decay: Zombies, Word Problems, and M&Ms's

Hi guys!

After returning from Fall Break, I decided to do exponential growth and decay, and I think that most of the kids enjoyed it. I really like this lesson as it is one of the most relevant and "real-life applicable" lessons of Algebra 2.

Day 1:

I started out the lesson by doing the Desmos Activity "Ben and Abe's Repair Shop", which you can search for at teacher.desmos.com. I really liked this lesson, and I really liked students' reactions to the scenario. Students were getting into the discussion and were fully engaged. However, I still have some troubles getting all of my students to effectively communicate. We are working on that, though. After this activity was done, I asked students if they liked the show The Walking Dead. I then asked students if they wondered why I was talking about The Walking Dead. We modeled our own "zombie apocalypse." It started that I was the first infected zombie; then I infected someone else. Then the two of us infected one person each, and so on, and so on.

After this, I put a picture of the 2016 NCAA March Madness basketball tournament bracket. I had a couple of students who were able to identify the bracket, but most couldn't, unfortunately. Then we looked at a few equations to model growth and decay. End Day 1.

Day 2:

We went full force on some word problems. Of course, there were a few groans, but a decent portion of the kids understood how to construct the problems, but some of them had issues converting percentages into decimals in the formulas. There were also some issues with being able to differentiate between 4% and .04%, which I tried to fix in one of my classes, but I didn't do such a good job in my other class. After tackling some word problems, we did Exponential Growth and Decay Modeling using M&Ms.

I first found this activity from a Google Search and found a handout. At the current moment, I cannot find the specific handout, but I don't want to take credit for something that I did not do. I have used the particular handout several times, but I tweaked it to include some technology.

The directions are on the handout, but some kids had some trouble at first getting started with the growth and/or decay. I had to help a couple of groups individually. I began the activity by having students line up at the front of the room by birthday January to December, and then I grouped the kids. After completing seven trials, students had to plot their data into Desmos and look at their graphs. I required students to call me over to debrief when the graphs were constructed, and we discussed the graphs as a group. I then had students answer a couple of questions on the handout.

If you would like, here is the handout. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me!

Here are a few pics!

Puzzled and Disturbed

On Friday afternoon, I received a text message from one of my best friends, Phyllis, who I used to teach with in my first year. After I left, she and I have still maintained our friendship, and we talk about once a week. The text message simply said "Oh Dear God." I asked what was up, and she told me that I needed to check out a video that someone had shot at her former school, which was the school where my former students graduated from after having me at the Ninth Grade Academy, so, needless to say, I knew the school well.

I tried to find the link, but I couldn't. She then private messaged me. I was unaware of what I was getting ready to see. As I watched the video, I noticed a student harassing a special education student.  Then what I saw was much worse. I saw a teacher try to take this student and sit on her in the floor to restrain her. Then I saw the teacher take the student by the hair and drag her across the gym floor.

After I watched the video, I texted my friend and said that I thought the teacher looked like someone we both used to work with at our former school. About 20 minutes later, my friend texted me back and said that it was indeed that same teacher. I was floored and was in a state of shock. I would have never suspected this teacher to ever do something like this. I never witnessed that behavior from this lady. Never! I only observed her being fair, firm, but caring toward her students.

Even though I have watched this video several times; even two days later, I am just still horrified by the situation. I am still trying to completely process what happened. Even though all of my former students have graduated, there is always that small possibility that it could've been one of my kids. I don't know what was going through the teacher's head at the time this happened. As a teacher, I just still cannot come to terms or process what happened to this child.

For the sake of anonymity, I am refraining from posting the link to the video. I am also refraining from posting due to the fact that the video clip contains disturbing images. If you feel so inclined to watch the video, it has went viral and has made news sites in several states, so you may Google it.

Let me close this by giving a piece of advice. Whether we realize it or not, we, as teachers, always have to be cognizant of the fact that any of our actions and words can be recored and used against us at any time.

Visual Patterns Task Project

Ah, fall break! It is here! However, I really want to share a project that my kids did with you guys and tell how it worked in my class! We had been working on arithmetic and geometric sequences as well as arithmetic series and other types of patterns in my Algebra 2 classes. Since we had midterms this past week, I didn't want to give a written quiz about sequences and series as well as a midterm. Plus I tried to take into account that my students had three other midterms in addition to my class. So, I had an epiphany one afternoon to have students write their own math tasks using patterns that were available on Visual Patterns.

I created a Google Doc with the requirements, and then I attached an example task for students to look at and use. Then students created their task and answer key on the following pages and return to me via Google Classroom so that way I could give feedback. Some of the students struggled with coming up with questions, but I thought that this would be good for students, as many haven't had many opportunities to craft their own questions. I did help a few students come up with some questions, and several students asked for my feedback on questions. I had 100% participation, especially since it counted as a quiz grade (and quizzes/tests are 70% of a student's grade in class).

I really liked this project, and I will definitely use it again. A couple of things that I would change would be creating a more concrete rubric (yet I loved just being able to give feedback). I would also give students a more extended period of time to complete, such as a day or so. I would also be more specific with questions and encourage students to craft their own questions.

I am attaching the Google Doc with the requirements for the assignment as well as my example task. I am also attaching a few of the exemplar projects from my students, all of whom granted me permission to post. Let me know if you have any questions about this task. Also, I would love to know if you use the task in your classroom, and whether it was a success or not. Furthermore, I would love some feedback to help improve the project.

Visual Patterns Task Assignment

Student Exemplars