Math in Our World

I found this article to be extremely interesting given the circumstances that we are currently in.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-make-remote-or-hybrid-math-and-science-instruction-engaging

Let me give you all a little context before reading through this article. My school is currently operating in what they call a Hybrid Learning environment. I'm sure we all know what this means by now, but basically a hybrid model involves some in person learning and some remote learning. So obviously this was pitched to me as a “best of both worlds” type of environment. I quickly panicked as I thought that being a math teacher and teaching remotely would just be too difficult and the kids would struggle without the hands-on instruction. Because, let’s face it math is all about hands on, trial and error, showing your process and most importantly practice. Millions of ideas filled my head about kids cheating, using calculators, talking to one another about questions and not truly working out the problems. When I was given my schedule I was relieved. Many of my concerns were not going to become a reality. The school opted to teach the core curriculum (Math, Science, ELA, Social Studies) in person and electives and other things like gym and health would be online. My concerns were eased. At least I thought.

My first week of school my boss came up to me and sprung upon me teaching an elective due to a last second retirement. Not only that but the class had to be finalized in three hours and I was given one hour to name the class and decide what it would be about. So after some thought i decided to call it “Math in our world”, I figured the name was very vague as just about anything involving math could be taught in the class. I started to brainstorm some simple topics like tipping and splitting bills and other real life math topics. Now lets go back to the part where I said that electives were taught online. After naming and thinking about the class (which i thought was going to be taught in person, like normal time), I found out it was online. Although it was similar to my previous panic I realized that it was an elective given to me in the final hours there isn't going to be as much pressure as a core math class.

So after doing some research I decided that I should at least make this class a fun class.

The article points out two things that I immediately was drawn too,

SIMPLE EXPERIMENTS AND MATH PROJECTS FOR REMOTE LEARNING

Focus on things that can be easily communicated and don’t need lots of materials. Can students calculate volume by measuring cereal boxes? Or grow mold in a Ziploc bag with foods from the fridge? How about measuring and graphing the foot sizes and wingspans of family members?

Although these ideas seem more like scientific ideas it gave me inspiration for my first project. I decided that I would give them an allowance of $50 and give them a couple of in prompt magazines with various sales in them from 5% off to 50% off. Some magazines would favor the boys like sports stores and video games and others would favor the girls like clothing and jewelry. Ultimately they can choose one or all the magazines and buy what they want to buy without going over the limit. I felt like this would be a cool project for them to do and if they had any questions I would be able to help remotely.

The next thing that caught my attention was this excerpt,

SIMULATIONS AND GAMES

Many scientific and math concepts can be simulated or recreated using apps and websites. Free sites include PhET simulations (science and math simulations for upper elementary through high school)

I thought that these games would be excellent to give for homework as they would be eager to play. I spend a couple of hours looking up free math games that would be able to peak interest but also be within their capabilities. The only problem is that many of them wouldn't be trackable to see who completed what, how long they were on it and how well they did. I am still learning and trying to figure new things out with this class but so far it’s been fun. They seem engaged and like what has been given to them thus far. I think what I was most afraid of when I first thought of remote learning was in my head there was no way I could give the kids the same level of teaching as I would in person. Fortunately although it is not quite the same level, it has opened the door for much more creative learning opportunities and that's what I hope to pass on to my students, that math can be fun and is'nt just world problems and formulas.