Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Who Done It...Math Style
As much as I'm enjoying my graduate class, I'm having difficulty seeing how I can incorporate the activities we do in class in my classroom. But last night, I was struck with a thought. What if I use the criminal puzzle we worked on in class with math? My kids are learning the different types of numbers, i.e. natural, whole, integer, etc. So on Friday before my kids take their quiz, I'm going to pair them up and have a who done it with math. The clues will lead them to the type of number that committed the crime and I'll have a list of suspects on the board. At the end, we'll vote for who we think committed the crime, and then we'll reason it out again. I hope this works!
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Just so you don't feel alone, let me share with you that in many ITS years, I have heard math teachers struggle with how databases can be used. Maybe it isn't the best tool for the job that you want to get done and usually in life outside of grad class, this is a well-thought out design decision. You are thinking about the instructional goals then designing and choosing which tool will suport the learning.
ReplyDeleteHowever, now you are required to think deeply about how a database might fit- kind of the opposite process. I think you tackled this problem beautifully. Use what is familiar to you and what you've had experience with, like the Mystery database. Good advice for this program is that when you get stuck in this program, try looking at what was done in class and see how that might work with your own practice. This will start your creative thinking and before you know it, you'll have more ways to use databases in math than you ever dreamed of.
For the project you described, what will be your crime story? Any ideas yet?
Also don't forget about the use of Online Databases ---a census database at http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/---is a good numbers database to get numbers. Your job would be to create something for them to do with the numbers :) The clear outcome doesn't have to have anything to do with the database. It would just be used as step to in creating the final product.
Stay tuned...I hear there will be a good example for Math teachers in either week 6 or week 7 class :)
So I'm wondering....how was your "Who Done It?"????
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