Is it Linear? With Fidget Spinners

Fidget spinners are all the rage right now. At my school I would say maybe 10% have them, one thing with fidget spinners that my students are using right now is an app called Finger Spinner. The point of the game is you get 5 tries to reach the highest number of spins. With each number of spins you get certain coins which you can upgrade your fidget spinner such as increasing speed or greasing the wheels.

Introduce the topic is by having out an actual fidget spinner and spin it twice and ask the students were there the same amount of spins both times? Some will say yes since it is the same fidget spinner and some will say no, because it determines how hard you spin it.

Then do the same thing with the app, projecting it on the whiteboard. Spin it once and then twice. Since it counts the number of spins it will be easier to ask if they were the same.

The next question is how many times would I have to spin it to get to 100 spins?

 

I have been using this handout from Estimation180: http://www.estimation180.com/blog/estimation-180-handout to have students record their answers in one place.

I want students to look at the data and see that each one is about the same in number of spins and looks linear. Using the whiteboard I want to project some student work start from the basic ones to the student work where they have a linear graph sketched (w/ average). Then have the student explain the processes they went through.

The last part is to get students using the app. My question to them is once you upgrade a part of the fidget spinner does it stay linear? What if you keep upgrading? What if you alternate upgrading? How does it effect the number of spins?

My goal next year is to incorporate more modeling and more hands-on uses of math concepts.

Lines of Ballerina Dancers

At the Joslyn Art Museums Thursdays for Teachers we got the chance to sketch 4 ballerinas from the Nebraska Ballet Company. Our workshop first focused on the lines of a ballerina dancer in different poses. It got me thinking about the different lines of a ballerina and in Algebra 2 we are currently going over linear equations. What linear equations do a ballerina make? So I put the pictures in Desmos and this is what I found.

Here are three lines I found.

After I graphed these I thought what a great activity this would be for students. Students could do their own poses and graph them, they could be shooting a basketball, yoga poses, or football poses. 

Then I thought what if we did this every unit and students could reflect on line families and how they relate.  It is one of my big goals I want to student to learn this year: Function families share similar graphs, behaviors, and properties.

Then I tried the same graph with parabolas, which is our next unit. Almost seemed to work better.

Debates in Math

I have been looking over my Algebra 2 curriculum to find places where I could include debates in the math classroom.  I was trying to find ways of including more formal debates where students take in all of the information.  My goal is to give students a day to find all of the information, that night have them make a poster, meme, or infographic to demonstrate that learning.  The next day students will present their arguments to the class in a fishbowl activity.

1. The first would be about Functions, Equations, and Graphs.  Students would be split into groups of 2 and one would be graphs the other would be equations.  Students would have debate on which is a better demonstration of functions equations or graphs.
• Students would then have to produce a poster or meme.
• Then the next day students would argue about which is better.  A list of questions that I will pose to students to get them talking will be added later.
2. The second debate would be about Quadratic Functions and Equations. Same concept on groups of two but it would it include the best way to solve quadratics.
• This time students will be placed into groups:
• Completing the Square
• Quadratic Formula
• Graphing
3. The last one I will incorporate is probability.  I'm going to go a little off script and give them an article to read and then talk about analyzing data.  Is the article true or not students will have to determine if the samples and survey are sound. 

I will add more as I become more proficient in dealing with debates and keep you posted as we have them in class.

Student Developed Apps

Who knows apps better than students?


Not too many people, so who is best for creating these apps?

Students, perhaps.

Having students develop apps is a great way of getting students creating when they are young to see if this is a possible career choice for them.  Some great articles include college students developing apps to help with algebra.  The tools assist teachers in diagnosing where students struggle and offer interactive solutions to put them on track.  One app called "Card Clutter" helps students understand the relative value of numbers by arranging cards in order with face values ranging from negative fractions to absolute numbers. Those expressions sometimes stump students when solving algebraic equations.

Others include: Recently a handful of his students tapped the touch screens in rapid fire to solve for x. "Do some 'Alge-Bingo' for me," he told Zack Sheldon, who quickly got to work.  "It makes it fun and easy," Sheldon said.  Jones said it was a great way to use her math skills, teaching skills and computer science skills at the same time.She developed the "Diamond Factor" app, which helps students factor trinomials, an algebraic expression with three terms such as x² + 8x + 16.

To read the entire article click here: Algebra Apps


One great example that I want to share with you is a student at Elkhorn Public Schools who wants to take his app on the market.  It has many different incorporations in mathematics.  It is called Roll It, and you can check more of it out here: Roll It

Roll It is an app created by a student from Elkhorn Public Schools.  There is an app for it coming soon to iPads and iPhones.  But for now, you can use the online one for your students to use.  http://rollitapp.weebly.com/ 

Here are a few things Roll It can do:

• Roll It comes with up to 4 possible players.
• Easy to read design.
• Perfect for SMART technologies.
• Comes with a random player selector to decide what player comes next.
• Four random generating dice, perfect for all games. 
• Easy to use timer.

You can use any of these technologies for any game and when teachers lose parts to games like I do all the time there is an online place where I can fill in the missing pieces with online parts.  Once the app is up and running in the App Store for iTunes, students could use this at their desks for review games, stations, or even in their homes.  This is a great web 2.0 tool that all teachers can use in their classrooms.