Graph Pictionary

Just a quick task that worked a treat this afternoon… Played in the exact same style as regular pictionary, I started by asking students to write down equations of graphs on separate bits of paper (each student did 3).  I then played in small teams, with each team given 3 minutes to draw as many of the equations as they could, picking them out of ’hat’, with the rest of the team guessing.  Each time one was guessed, the next member of the team came up to draw… The winning team was the one with the most correctly guessed functions.   I found after a short while that points had to be deducted for guessing – at first there was a bit of a free-for-all as students shouted out many possible answers without thinking it through!

This was an effective 10 minute demonstrate activity used with year 9 with the  simple equations they had been working as all students were keen to be involved and prove their understanding - but I can imagine it would work pretty well with more complex graphs further into the students’ mathematical understanding – or even with functions for transformations of graphs.

Biscuit Marines… part 2

After sucessfully analyzing and presenting the discrete data collected from counting the number of dips, the next step mathematically required continuous data… So out came the biscuits once again, this time with weighing scales and stop clocks.

So far we’ve learnt how to accurately group the data into sensible groups and calculate the estimated mean for each type of biscuit to compare the ability of them to withstand heat without ‘falling in me brew’…

Next, cumulative frequency and histograms!

Speed Introduction – Appealing to y10′s younger side…

I was trying to come up with a way to introduce speed to year 10… I had decided to see how fast they could throw a tennis ball, by timing how long it would take them across a specific distance.  Predictably, it was tipping it down.

I thought about instead using toys to appeal to their younger side, finding some toy cars…

I lined the cars up on a starting grid before the lesson so as to engage the students as soon as they arrived.. this was a massive success as all the students immediately wanted to know what they were doing!

I asked 8 students to choose a car, without showing them how they moved.  They chose them for various reasons, one chose the fire truck as he used to want to be a fireman!

We held a race, completing three laps of the room – measuring the distance this represented – and timed how long each car took.  This led in to a great discussion about why those cars won and how we could calculate their speed… Great intro – the kids were chaoticly excited, but fully engaged!

 

Human Cumulative Frequency Curves…

So… this was ok, but a bit squashed today.. No pictures, but I’ll try to explain! 

I set up a pair of axes, one cumulative frequency, one hair length.  I asked any students with hair less than 10cm long to stand on the 5 cm line, then placed a marker where the last person in the line was (hence plotting the first cumulative frequency stood..)

I then asked anyone with hair less than 10 cm long to stand on that line.  Interestingly, none of the boys from the first group (as it was all boys..) moved.. they didn’t automatically connect that even though they were in the less than 5 group, that they were also in the less than 10 group! This lead to some interesting discussions… Eventually, we were all in the right place and another marker was put on the floor. 

I repeated this process until everyone in the class was in a line, placing the final marker. (This is where the slight crush was.. even with our generously sized classrooms, trying to get 31 students stood in a long line is tricky!) I then asked how I would draw a line on this graph… using string to place a curve.  I then drew a regular frequency table, and asked them to discuss how the data in the graph could be easily reached from this.

A great way to introduce the concept of cumulative frequency, but in hindsight, would have been better being done in a larger space – to the street next time!

 

 

 

ICT for instant feedback…

Students working on a newspaper article today in my secure maths lesson got a bit of a shock as I started sending them messages direct to their computer… Once they got over the shock, they adapted work based on the feedback I was giving them… great instant feedback method!

Peter Kay’s Biscuit Marines – Data Handling investigation!

Getting year 11, two weeks after their terminal GCSE maths paper, to learn the data handling skills we need for statistics GCSE, can be a hard task… I used this investigation 3 years ago with a group of difficult pupils and faced with a similar task, I decided to try again!

After showing the students the clip of Peter Kay’s sketch, I announced that we were going to test his theory, producing hob nobs, rich tea biscuits, tea bags, mugs and milk from the mysterious bag on the floor.. they were naturally immediately intrigued!

Today, we collected discrete data, counting how many dips of each biscuit you could do in a hot cup of tea before it collapsed.  I asked them how we could present the data – they came up with a couple of ideas, choosing one for themselves to do – I’m particularly impressed as they wanted to learn how to draw a pie chart as they thought it would look better, and so demanded to be taught!

Once the pie chart demand is dealt with, we’ll expand the investigation into other biscuits.. and continuous data using time so that we can learn some of the other key skills!!

Overall, a great hook for a weak group – even if it does mean I have 20 mugs to wash up

Human Two Way Tables – Nicki Minaj Vs Lady Gaga

Rachel Futo gave me the great concept of creating two way tables using the students favourite music types..  I decided to use a mash-up of two songs (link) and ask my year 11 class to ‘pick a side!’, with the song playing as they arrived.  They were immediately intrigued, wanting to know what this had to do with maths. 

I put a line down the middle of the room, asking them to stand on their choice of music stars side.  I then put another line across the middle forming a grid and asked them to stand on either side of the line based on whether they were a boy or a girl, before boxing them in.  We then discussed putting totals at the end of each column and row to make the table clear.  Once the students had the idea, I stepped back, put another mash up song on and asked them to create their own table without any help..  they were suprising confident to do this and soon produced a good result, clearly having understood how they worked.

I then put a final song on and this time said I would ask them to create the table without showing me the result.  When they had finished, I asked them to remove 3 cards.

I told them, confidently, that I would still be able to tell how many people had chosen each option and asked them why.  They were easily able to explain the idea of using the totals to calculate the missing values and so how I would be able to achieve my boast.  I set them off to practise on the computers! Great method!