In my capstone class for future secondary math teachers, I ask my students to come up with ideas for engaging their students with different topics in the secondary mathematics curriculum. In other words, the point of the assignment was not to devise a full-blown lesson plan on this topic. Instead, I asked my students to think about three different ways of getting their students interested in the topic in the first place.
I plan to share some of the best of these ideas on this blog (after asking my students’ permission, of course).
This student submission comes from my former student Mario Acosto. His topic, from Pre-Algebra: multiplying fractions.
What interesting (i.e., uncontrived) word problems using this topic can your students do now? (You may find resources such as http://www.spacemath.nasa.gov to be very helpful in this regard; feel free to suggest others.)
Word problems can be a good way to make your students start to think about topics. I feel like giving students worksheets isn’t a good way for them to learn new material because it’s just boring and makes the students not be excited about the topic. Some word problems can be very interactive such as the example that I have right here. (https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/mket-math-ee-vidgoliathbeetle/beetle/#.W4nobvZFxu0).
This video shows a great way for students to first visualize on how to multiply fractions and it also gives the students something new to know about beetles. I really love this video because of how detail the images are and gives the students an example problem at the end of the video. For the example that is given at the end of the video, I will make the students pair up and let them try to solve the example for at least 10 mins and then go over it together as a class. If the student has a hard time seeing fractions then this is a good way to see them.
How have different cultures throughout time used this topic in their society?
Knowing that different cultures used multiplying fractions in their own way is so satisfying because each one is so different to where it makes you think that a new math concept of multiplying fractions could come up within the next century. This article gives amazing examples of how each culture used multiplying fractions in their own way but end up having the same mindset. http://www.math.wichita.edu/history/topics/num-sys.html
To engage my students into learning about this I would make a chart of the different cultures there are in the above link and make the students choose one culture as a group and let them learn about it. After they have learned more about the culture then I will tell them to come up with a way to teach what they have learned to the class. This should take about half of the class time but not all. It’s a good way for students to learn something new while still being engaged.
How can technology (YouTube, Khan Academy [khanacademy.org], Vi Hart, Geometers Sketchpad, graphing calculators, etc.) be used to effectively engage students with this topic? Note: It’s not enough to say “such-and-such is a great website”; you need to explain in some detail why it’s a great website.
Technology is the best way to teach students in this generation because many of the students are high tech with their devices. So, having a website that teaches your students about multiplying fractions but in an engaging way. ( http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/fractions/frac5.html )
I really like this website because it’s easy to follow and it even has a table of contents to where you can choose a specific subtopic. The examples that this website gives are simple, but some are challenging. Whenever going on the website, it first sets you up with a table of contents and you can click on the link to bring you up with examples. It’s a very useful resource that helps expand student’s mind on the topic of multiplying fractions. It even lets you answer questions and gives you a score on your answers. I will show the students on how to go through the website and then let them give it a try. This is a great website to interact with multiplying fractions but in a fun way.
Mean Green Math 