- what do x's mean in real life? Kisses, have your students blow kisses, not to other people, but they can have other meanings.
- replacing x with other symbols such as smiley faces, flowers, etc.
- Factoring is like a party.
- Distributing is saying "hi," to everyone at the party.
- Factoring is pulling people out of a party.
Girly Math
"Two planes are heading toward each other at ..." is this entertaining? No! Especially not for girls. How many of your math questions have: chocolate, puppies, birthday cake, pool parties, hair salons, jewelry, or lemonade? None? I'm guessing at least 50% of your class are girls. Different ways to incorporate more girly ideas in your classroom are:
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Nice.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree, examples in most books are not that entertaining, even for boys.
ReplyDeleteBut I think that some of your examples are as singelminded as the author of "Women are from Venus and men from Mars"
I mean please, hair saloons and pool parties?
There must be better examples that work for both girls and boys.
I agree that there are better examples, please offer some up.
DeleteThis blog is about making math teachers more accessible to students and making them top professionals in their teaching community.
Thank you for your input.
Ok, bake a cake. But scale the recepie up or down. If they have mobile phones, how many SMS can they send before their money runs out. There are lots of thing. Just to try make math "pink" doesn't make it any better than the "Two planets..." example.
DeleteIf the students going to have a party, how much will it cost per visitor, which could be interesting for both girls and boys.
If the math is interesting for girls, the same examples should be interesting for boys. Just being sexisting will not help. But showing that it is helpfull in every day is making it interesting.