I have played on many sports teams during my high school
years and so I think it is safe to say I thrive on competition. When one thinks
of competition the polar opposite thought might be mathematics, well I am here
to tell you are WRONG! “Mathies” can get competitive too I have seen it first
hand and it is intense. I have experienced a number of student competitions
within the field of STEM that students can get excited about and in the same
way as a basketball tournament these competitions require practice, hard work, and
commitment from the team. The first example is the Jr. Math Challenge presented by the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic Board.
This bi-annual event brings students in grades 4-6 together to learn and
compete in all things math. Six students from each school (2 from each grade)
are selected to represent their school at this one day tournament. In
preparation for the event teacher coaches usually practice all types of math problems
with their students. The format of the event is as follows; schools are ranked
based on their scores, scores are received from their participation in each of
the activity rooms. Some of the rooms the students participate in exercise
student mental math, problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration
skills. Students are awarded with prizes and also have the opportunity to listen
to inspiring speakers in the field of STEM. A new similar contest has been
created for high school students. The Mohawk
Math Engineering Challenge is held at Mohawk College and has been created
for grade 9 and 10 students to encourage students to continue a path in STEM. In
its inaugural year this contest partnered with a number of sponsors to provide
amazing tech prizes for the students. Another contest present in many southern Ontario
high schools is the Waterloo Math Contest
presented by the University of Waterloo a leading university and math and
sciences. This contest is simply a test students that can write to extend their
math knowledge and their scores get ranked within their school as well as
province wide. An example of a large scale competition is any of the Robotic
meets. These are the ultimate events that combine a love for STEM and sport. In
these competitions high school teams bring their robot, which they designed and
built, to a stadium which is transformed into a playing field where their
robots are to complete a series of tasks. This is not just a show and tell
event where students show off what they have done, they need to show what they
can do by pinning their robot against others in the field and usually race to
complete the tasks. Students are on their toes at these competitions as they
are constantly making adjustments to their robots and their strategy to the
games. These competitions truly demonstrate next level intelligence in students
and they only get more impressive as you enter regional and global competitions.
There are so many opportunities for students in STEM to show her competitive
side and why not!
Tuesday, 13 February 2018
Thursday, 8 February 2018
Movie Math
One important aspect of being a math teacher is getting
students to recognize the usefulness of mathematics and possibly inspiring
students to pursue a career in STEM. One way to achieve this goal is to provide
students with positive role models in STEM they can look up to. Being a “mathie”
and a movie buff myself, I have seen a number of movies that inspire me as a mathematician
and can do the same for students in my classes. Below are some films that I can
see showing or referring to my senior classes.
This first
film is not only inspiring to students pursuing STEM but specifically to female
students. Hidden Figures is a
recent Oscar nominated film celebrating women who have made significant
contributions to math and science. The story follows African-American women
working at NASA as Mathematicians and a Physicist. These women were integral to
the success of sending the first American astronaut, John Glenn, into orbit. Although
this movie takes place in the 60’s it demonstrates the gender disparity within
the field of STEM. For female students it shows that yes there are
opportunities in this field for them and they should be confident in their own
intelligence as well as their passion that this career is for them despite
being outnumbered by males.
The Imitation Game depicts the historical events during World
War II as British intelligence agency hires mathematicians to break a Nazi
code. As much as this is a World War II movie, the focus is on the group of
mathematicians that are on the clock to build a machine that will break the
code. This movie proves the usefulness of mathematics and may intrigue students
to further investigate the world of combinatorics. The movie also provides a
strong female lead that uses her intelligence to help solve the code.
The Man Who Knew Infinity is a movie for true math people. The
plot surrounds the life of now famous mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who originally travelled
from India to England to work with a professor in the math department. Ramanujan
had produced solutions to many unsolvable problems as well as providing proofs
for his own theorems. This movie demonstrates the endless possibilities of
mathematics. It would be useful to show this movie to your grade 12 students as
it explains the importance in proofs and providing information to back up your
calculations as this is what they will most likely be exposed to in university.
Moneyball is a light hearted film which once
again demonstrates the daily applications of mathematics. The movie is about
the general manager of the Oakland A’s Baseball team that decides to incorporate
a statistical approach to recruiting and running his team. This mathematical
approach to baseball is now being applied to many of the MLB teams today. For
students who love sport and math this movie shows that there are a vast number
of job opportunities in mathematics and there are opportunities to work in a
job that combines your passion for sport and math.
Wednesday, 7 February 2018
Money Matters
In this blog I am sending a message to all coders, app and
online game creators and website designers. I have been working with some
students in locally developed high school math classes and I have found that
there is a shortage of good engaging, interactive math games for students
working at this level. The focus for locally developed classes aside from
preparing them for the grade 11 workplace course is to develop the mathematical
skills that can transfer to crucial life skills. The most important of these skills
is financial literacy which even the Canadian government has recognized as an
important aspect of education we need to be focusing on. I was recently teaching
a grade 10 student who wanted to develop her money skills. The first and
obvious strategy I would suggest to all teachers is to use a cash register, yes
the old fashion ones we played shop with in kindergarten. The best way for
students to understand the value of money and spending is to physically
practice. During our study sessions, my student and I would work through class
homework sheets and solve written financial problems by adding and subtracting
values manually and drawing pictures. Then we would re-do the problems but this
time completely orally and using the cash registers just like in a store. The
first few times there was definitely a disconnect between the idea of written
monetary values and having the physical dollar amount in their hands but with
practice it was a seamless transition between paper and practice. This is a
great way of learning but it cannot be the only way. I found after a while the
students were tired of using money the same way for every question. I tried to
incorporate some practice using technology but getting to the root of my
problem, the online games I found sucked! All the free online games were too
simple, they repeated the questions, and they were asking students to perform
the same type of transactions. Then I would switch between games to find
different problems but most online money games showing students the coins and
bills are mostly American. Then looking into apps and computer game, the best
ones were super expensive and others were hard to find. I know school boards do
have licensing for some excellent games but how does this help the parent at
home or in the summer when they want to practice math skills with their child
without breaking the bank. Yes if you search there are good worksheets and
activities available online to engage students but for those who are more
inclined to practice with online games we are still waiting for a great Canadian
invention. One final note to add for parents, take your kids to the store with
you, not just to pick out what they like and then help you with the grocery
bags. Get your children to shop with you, look at flyers, compare prices, write
a list go to the store and do the math before you reach the checkout.
Math Online?
Hello blogosphere! I am back with a few more things to say
surrounding all beautiful things math.
My first topic of discussion is e-learning and mathematics. The shift
towards blended classrooms, flipped classrooms and online courses are most the
most predominant trends in teaching math. With that being said, there still
many people including teachers that question the delivery of course content and
student success rates from online math courses. As a student I have personally
not experienced an online math class however there have been a few variations I
have encountered as a university student and as an educator. In university some
intro calculus classes for programs other than math and science were offered
online. In these courses students were taking online quizzes, listening to
online podcast lectures and submitting assignments online. This course was run
through the university’s main online portal “Avenue To Learn” however the
course was only partially online as there was a traditional in-class portion
each week. This format also required students to write all tests, mid-terms and
exams in person on campus. This course was clearly more of a blended approach and
since the students enrolled in the course most likely did not have a strong
math background they found they should still include a traditional in class
portion. Looking at the high school level I have experienced multiple fully
online courses using the online hub “Desire to Learn”. These courses especially
during the summer are always full and the subject areas offered are usually
English, History, Geography, and some of the upper year social science courses.
I have yet to see a Mathematics course offered online and there are a few
reasons I can see why.
First, just like the university students, high school
students may require individualized attention and assistance that is best provided
in person rather than through a screen. I think in using this portal makes it
difficult as a teacher to really get to know your learners and to understand
where they are struggling. This places a lot of responsibility on the student
to advocate for their learning and make sure they send emails to their teacher
and pose questions within class forums. Some arguments have been made from
students and teachers that this online forum and others similar are difficult
to work with, confusing and overall not very user friendly. I believe this
comes down to the effort put in by the instructor. I have seen a history class
that was designed in an extremely organized fashion allowing students to follow
instructions that were very explicitly written. The site also incorporated
links to videos, webpages and other sources used to aid the lesson, all of
which were not difficult to locate later on and it did not put the students
through a maze to get back to the lesson they were working on. Again, this was
a mostly writing based course and the question remains as to whether even the most
organized and well planned sites can effectively educate students in a
mathematical sense. This brings me to my recent experience with Google Sites
and Webinars. I personally believe that in catering to all types of learners an
online mathematics course should include both an interactive face to face
component as well as individual study. Google Sites and Google classroom are
excellent bases for math classrooms. A teacher is able to engage students with
visuals, maps videos, provide links to games, blogs, and other helpful or
interesting math links. I know you can do most of this on the other portals but
having the information on a website you may be more likely to get students to
participate in readings and additional learning activities instead of looking
for what it due for the week. Using this method I think including webinars can
be a solution to connecting to your students and understanding their fears,
struggles and goals in the class. For example you can provide the link to
webinar session to be hosted once a week and students can join in to ask
questions, discuss their learning and possibly working on their problem solving
skills together as a group. As new programs continue to be created and
curriculum is developed there are endless possibilities for online learning, yes
even in math as long as there are dedicated teachers, committed learners and an
open mind.
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