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Recently googled: JMAP ExamView Question Banks of NY Regents math exams…going back to 1890!
Oh, and I go back to work on Tuesday, to a building with 50% more students than in May, to the year my classes’ English Learner population should tip 50%, probably to “float” into other teachers’ classrooms, to teach physics!, to my 8th year in the classroom, and with the best math department in the world. Am I ready? Heck no. Am I excited? Heck yeah!
Check this: ExamView dynamic questions can have dynamic answers. Thank you bobf, the forum guy for pointing out that the word “answer” is reserved in ExamView. It will change the answer to your question.
My question goes something like this:
I want to make this into 3 different questions, asking also about converse or inverse. Here comes the algorithm:
Voila! Sometimes this question has an answer of B, other times it’s D, or even sometimes C.
[I write these things down to remind myself later. Do you like my random ExamView tips? Leave me a comment.]
Jackpot! Summer is half over for me[1], so naturally it’s time to start working on classroom stuff.
Today, I visited teacher heaven — or, as it’s properly known, the Jim Cherry Teacher Center. Employees of my school system get a $3 credit every visit. And with prices like poster board for $0.15 or laminating for $0.25/ft, you get a lot for your money. Private school teachers are welcome, too! Not in the metro Atlanta area? Chances are really good your public school system offers something similar.
Lookit what I have access to:
Like me, do you have no idea what an art waxer is? To the Google Machines! An outdated post on a mailing list tells me it’s an outdated piece of equipment with a nifty new use: sticky wax on the back of your posters will stick to your concrete block walls. Dude! Nothing sticks to my walls.
Even though I’ve completed seven years of teaching, I didn’t feel like I’d earned my chops until operating a laminating machine today. Next time I go out there, it’s the die cutters[2].
[1] It’s true — planning starts August 1 down here in the Dirty South
[2] these
This upcoming year, I’m back into the physics saddle (part time, at least) and the summer blockbuster schedule is supplying me plenty of fodder for my Physics of Superheros course.
Witness this scene from X-Men: First Class. (As I eagerly await the DVD release, you’ll have to settle for this single image)
Sebastian Shaw is a mutant. His power is that he can absorb kinetic energy and “rechannel it into superhuman strength, speed and durability“. In this scene, he’s about to absorb the energy of a hand grenade.
Just for argument’s sake, let’s say that’s a popular WWII grenade, the Mk2. The TNT equivalent for the 57 g of TNT in a Mk2 is 240 kJ. In order for normal Kevin Bacon to store that much energy, he’d have to climb to a height of 340 m*. Dude, that’s a lot of energy.
Shaw is a walking, talking example of the Conservation of Energy Theorem. He is so going into my class.
Physics peeps — suppose Shaw chose to convert the energy to “superhuman strength”, how strong would he be? More to the point, what does “strength” mean in this sense? Should we go with traditional materials measures of strength like tensile or ductile? Or human measures like “can bench press x pounds”?
* Energy is conserved and potential energy is given by PE = mgh
m=mass
g=gravity
h=height
Solving for h gives h = PE/(mg)
h = 240 kJ / [(70 kg)(9.8 m/s²)]
h= 340 m
This falls under Georgia Performance Standard SP3a, “Students will evaluate the forms and transformations of energy. a. Analyze, evaluate, and apply the principle of conservation of energy and measure the components of work-energy theorem by
• describing total energy in a closed system.
• identifying different types of potential energy.
• calculating kinetic energy given mass and velocity.
• relating transformations between potential and kinetic energy.”
This is the Polar Clock (apparently, it’s soooo 2009). I recommend grabbing the screensaver or smartphone app (Win/Mac/Android/iPhone versions all available). In a pinch, you can watch a video of someone else running the app here.
Polar Clock isn’t precisely a Meyerian[1] What Can You Do With This? creature. But I do think the Polar Clock falls in the same genus as WCYDWT because it could inspire some pretty cool mathematical investigations.
If you’re a Georgia math teacher, check out standards from Math II, specifically the properties-of-circles stuff under MM2G3.
I ask y’all, what mathy questions does the Polar Clock inspire? Leave ‘em in the comments.
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[1] As I understand it, Dan Meyer’s WCYDWT requires that the problem have a hook anyone can guess at, that the math scaffolding can slowly be lowered, and that the photo/video/hologram/whatever look good. I got this based on my reading of http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?cat=70.
Students will “compare the averages of summary statistics from a large number of samples to the corresponding population parameters.”
–GPS MM1D3.b
Thoughts on what this would look like?
I regularly drive kids home from tutoring after school and they’re usually surprised to hear my radio tuned to a pop or hip hop station. Two years ago, I couldn’t have named a single song by Jay Z, Rihanna, or TI. Now, I can spit some lyrics* to “Empire State of Mind”, “Rude Boy”, and “Dead and Gone”. Music is probably my favorite way to connect with my ninth graders. (Recite the hook to a current hit and the kids will be eating out of your hand the rest of the lesson — I dare you to try it.)
Intentionally connecting with my kids seems like an obvious thing to do. I was surprised recently to hear from a group of teachers who “never thought of that”. I’m going to introduce them to the idea through some music they only think they know. Take a listen to these seemingly-familiar songs (close your eyes as you click so you don’t ruin the surprise by seeing the answer right away):
Lyric #1: “it’s a hard knock life for me”
Lyric #2: “I’ve had the time of my life”
Lyric #3: “what is love?”
My way is music. How do you connect in meaningful ways with your kids?
Where I work, one colleague makes it a point to attend athletic events all year long. Another acts as mentor to a growing crowd of young women. I think that no matter what you choose, it has to be authentic.
She said in a stage whisper: “Darn these presentations I sign up to give, making me think philosophically.”
* Did I really just use the phrase “spit some lyrics”?
Thanks for the inspiration, Kate Nowak. Your Circumcenters was an amazing lesson that my colleagues and I turned into a full-fledged project.
The day before Thanksgiving break, my students searched for approximately 25 treasures that were hidden inside and out of my school. We secured permission to hide treasures in offices of the most feared administrators, on the doors of teachers the kids love to hate, and on the walls of our halls.
The kids used Geometer’s Sketchpad with an embedded blueprint of our school (upstairs and down) to locate vertices of a triangle as given in a clue, then constructed all 4 points of concurrency. Upon showing me their 4 points, I unlocked a second part of their clue: hints that told them which point of concurrency marks the spot. In a mad dash, the kids grabbed the hall pass, a camera, and embarked on finding the flag. If a teacher or administrator busted them breaking rules or removing the treasure, they forfeited it. Students returned with photographic evidence of them at the site of the treasure flag.
Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain
Or, how this huge project came together
The numbers: Approximately 300 students participating. Three teachers @ 5 hours each to write the project. $400 in treasures and treasure flags. Seven donors bought some of our supplies through DonorsChoose and we 3 teachers bought the rest.
Here’s how we set the project up:
The project was an amazing success. Kids loved it and were all excited about playing the game — even though we ran it the day before Thanksgiving Break. Teachers: this is completely worth the time to set up for your school. Can’t say enough good about the wonderful donors who helped with $300 worth of goodies, either.
Georgia Performance Standards Alignment:
MM1G3. Students will discover, prove, and apply properties of triangles, quadrilaterals, and other polygons.
e. Find and use points of concurrency in triangles: incenter, orthocenter, circumcenter, and centroid.
(I’m still writing about the really amazing treasure hunt we had last week. In the meantime, check out this folding trick I learned from some kids today.)
I needed my kids to make a booklet for all the properties of special quadrilaterals we’ve learned recently. One of my students showed me a paper-folding trick he learned that works perfectly for our needs.
Apparently, there is a whole category of this stuff, called Foldables, that I was busy scoffing at during grad school. Do you have any cool folding tricks that kids like?
Step 1: Stack paper in a staggered pattern.
Step 2: Fold the paper from the side opposite the stagger.
Step 3: Crease and staple.
Thanks to my student Sara who texted me tonight asking how to make the fold. I sent her these images by way of explanation. Before you (or she) flip out over the matches, all I can tell you is that it’s Hanukkah at my house.
Why the booklet? Well, they were creating the…
Properties of Quadrilaterals Mini-Project
The booklet will hold problems the students have created to illustrate the properties of special quadrilaterals. For example, we teach that a parallelogram’s diagonals bisect each other. The students may create a problem that shows diagonal AC has midpoint M. AM = 2x and MC = 3x – 4. They set ‘em equal and then solve for x.
I’m making the kids create the problems, since we’ve solved about a million of them in the past few days. Ms. Golding is tired of creating algebraic expressions.
Each page of the booklet holds problems for each quadrilateral.
Someone observed my class today and remarked that he liked the task because it pushed the kids higher up Bloom’s. Eh, I was just looking for a way out of the algebraic-expression-invention game.
Happy folding!
Georgia Performance Standard (GPS) Alignment: MM1G3d, (the student will) Understand, use, and prove properties of and relationships among special quadrilaterals: parallelogram, rectangle, rhombus, square, trapezoid, and kite.
