Uno Stacko Final Exam Review

My brother in law gave me this idea. It is a uno-stacko review game. Uno-stacko is like Jenga. Here are the rules
1. Groups of 4.
2. Give a problem to the class.
3. Give time for them to solve the problem.
4. Call on someone at random.
5. If they talk you through the problem correctly, they pick two tiles.
If they don't get you through correctly, they pick four tiles.
6. If the tower falls when you are working on it, EVERYONE in the class gets extra credit, EXCEPT that persons GROUP of FOUR.
7. The students really get into it.
8. And yes, I have had students that want to knock it over and give the rest of the class extra credit. It never has happened yet.

Give it a try. Here is the video for it.

Pop Goes the Weasel and the Quadratic Formula

I thought I would show a video of a couple of students singing the quadratic formula to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel. The students really like this. Give it a try.

Inside or Outside the District?

Ben Grey has a great blog post that has prompted me to think about the question of housing our student and teacher work in or out of district. http://bengrey.com/blog/2009/04/technology-guidelines/ Thanks for the great post Ben.

Should we keep our students' work and our teachers' work within district? Why or Why Not. Is their a compromise on this issue?

My thoughts keep waffling on safety and collaboration. What do you think?

Finding the Regression Curve of a Sin Graph in Precalculus Class

Wow. Today I approached Precalculus class a little different than last year. I asked my students to work in groups and guess the average high temperature in Naperville for the month of January. Then I gave them the answer which happened to be 32 degrees F. Then I asked them to find the average of all the months of the year. When they had finished this they graphed it with the month being the x-axis and the temperature being the y-axis. Then, in their groups I asked them to make as many observations about the graph as they could. We spent about 5 minutes going over many ideas such as there is a max point, and it is periodic, and then someone said it. They said it looks like a sin graph! Awesome! This made my day.
Then I had them draw in the midline and tell where exactly it hit the y axis and it's meaning to the problem. Quickly the students found that this was the average high temperature for the year.
We covered other things like the midline and the amplitude and the phase shift. The period seemed boring to them, but was an important fact.
Then, we looked the actual graph that www.weather.com has on it. We went to the site and typed in our zip code 60565. Then we scrolled down to find AVERAGES . This gave this terrific graph.
Then I asked them to predict what the graph would look like from Honalulu HI. They used all kinds of precalculus vocabulary with each other and described how it would be different.
We looked up other cities like Barrow AK, and Death Valley CA. We also looked up Sydney Austrailia and found that the graph was shifted over significantly.
This lesson was different than last year because they were very interested in their own predictions. I think they were much more engaged.
Thanks to my colleague Kevin Bell for introducing me to the www.weather.com site.

Reaching for a Star

My father-in-law gave me this awesome quote and I thought I'd share it.

I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are;
because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star.
I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far;
for a might have-been has never been,
but a has-been was once an are.
Milton Berle

I'm going to give this quote to my students when I get back from spring break.

Free Virtual Calculator

PLEASE NOTE: THE CREATORS OF THIS SOFTWARE ASKED THAT ONLY OWNERS OF TI 83'S AND 84'S USE THIS PROGRAM. (I ACTUALLY THINK THE MORE THIS PROGRAM IS DISTRIBUTED, THE MORE BUSINESS TI WILL MAKE) THE LINK BELOW IS NOT MY WEBSITE.

http://www.cecisafadi.com/virtualti/ti83.htm

Do you have a virtual calculator on your computer? It is easy to download. Follow the instructions on the website and you will have yourself a TI 83 on your computer and for the data projector in a snap. The best part of this is if you have a IWB, then you can have a student model the keystrokes that you should use when using the calculator. If you are not too techie, then ask someone who can help you to take these steps. It will not take too long. With a restart about 10 minutes.

Here is what I did to get the calculator on my laptop:
1. Make a folder called "Virtual TI83" in the Programs folder
2. Click the "vti.zip" file and all of the files should show (if you don't have a zip program, there is one at the bottom of the website "unzip32-312.exe" that you can install to be able to unzip the files)
3. Put the unzipped files into the folder "Virtual TI83" from step 1.
4. Download "ti83 Plus v1.03.rom" to the folder "Virtual TI83" from step 1.
5. Go to the folder "Virtual TI83" and click on the "vti.exe" file to start the program. It will ask you to set the ROM calculator version and then you will be ready to go.
6. When using the calculator and you would like to turn it off, right click while you are pointed on the calculator, and click on Exit without saving state or Exit and save state.
7. Now make a shortcut for your desktop. I do this by right clicking on the "vit.exe" file and sending it to make a shortcut on the desktop.

The Human Ambigous Case

Today was something new for me. I put a masking tape angle on the floor. It was an acute angle. Then I had a tall person and a short person volunteer for the activity.
I had the tall person on the ground in line with the acute angle already on the floor. I had the short person forming a triangle with the tall person and the tape on the ground. It was quite a site. The students were really interested in what was happening. Keeping the same vertex, I asked the students to make another triangle if possible. The students found it quickly. I had a third student put masking tape on the triangle positions that were formed. I had the students talk with their partner and write down any observations they had about the resulting figure. We had a rich discussion sharing out their ideas.
Then I formed groups of three with the class. One of the three was to cut out a longer strip of paper, another was to cut out a short strip of paper, and the third was to cut out an acute angle. The were to physically make the SSA example with their paper Side, Side and Angle. All groups worked well with this and some interesting results occurred. The usual two case scenerio occurred. One group found that theirs did not reach. Another group found that theirs only formed one triangle. Each group of three drew their results on the board.
It gave me a way to describe something mathematical in an easy way. I used language like Side (Anthony) Side (Michelle) and Angle (Acute). After I felt like the students were much more engaged in the process. It took most of the period to do it. We did one problem at the end of the class and that problem went extremely well. I think that moving while learning is important for the brain to remember what is happening.