The Infinite Chocolate Trick, Tangrams, and Area on the Coordinate Plane

With 2 months to go in this semester, it'll be time this week to begin the work on the last big project in my Applied Math class where the kids use tangrams to study area, the distance formula, and linear equation writing. Usually I hook the kids with a day of playing tangrams to practice the spatial reasoning, but before that, I played this video of "The Infinite Chocolate Trick," where the user supposedly breaks off a chocolate bar, moves the pieces around, and winds up with an extra piece of chocolate, which if its true, would mean extra surface area just materialized out of nothing.

I didn't know how much the chocolate video would pull them in, but I'd declare it was a huge success! Kids were jumping out of their seats to come to the smartboard and try to explain their hypothesis on where the chocolate was coming from, several theories were floating around the room, and kids were asking me to play the clip over and over so they could try and catch what was happening. It set up so well for the essential question, someone actually REMEMBERED it today without me even asking. :)

For the next layer of the learning I started class with a Do Now of a triangle, circle, and rectangle on a coordinate plane, but with the relevant sides laying horizontal or vertical so the lengths could be determined just by counting units.

After we reviewed the solutions, I had to students focus on the example projects above the whiteboard and asked, "Looking at the projects up there, why do you think we started with these specific problems today?"

A student jumped right into, "So that we can prove that area of a shape is the same even if you move the pieces around..." Granted, that wasn't really why we started with that specific Do Now (I was setting up the distance formula), but I was glad that EQ stuck with her!

The official essential question for this unit is:

"How can you prove that the area of a given polygon is constant, no matter how its parts are arranged?"

Practically, the kids will be thinking, "Can I show that the area of my tangram goose (or sailboat, candle, fox, etc) is the same as the square my shapes came from?"

This project covers:
Area on the coordinate plane
Distance formula
Linear equation writing
Parallel and perpendicular lines/equations
Spatial reasoning
Using tools appropriately (measuring with a ruler, setting up their grid paper)

Here are some examples of previous years' work:

Instruction/example handout

An example of a kid who had all the required elements, but it WASN'T pretty.

If you've listened to either of the podcast episodes about our statistics based project based learning unit, you'll remember I was very frustrated with how little buy in my students showed behind what I thought was a highly relevant, meaningful project. This one is less relevant, so I wanted to make an extra effort to start with a strong hook and have an experience to draw from when the kids seemed to be lost on the connection or purpose of our work in this unit.  

5 Ways to Respond to a Students' Phone Being Out Besides Smashing It

You've seen a video like this, right?

I don't want to get on a high horse and pretend there hasn't been a time or two through the years that it hasn't been a dreamy proposition, but is this ever justifiable when you're awake, and of sober mind?

I had a Facebook friend propose this should happen to any student that has their phone out. Who does this help? Is there a follow-up to this video where the student whose phone was destroyed (or anyone else in the room for that matter) comes to see the errors of their ways and begins proselytizing in the name of luddites everywhere?

I had one of my "good" students in a class of several that cause me trouble who I caught FaceTiming with her friend. Was I frustrated? You bet. Does she need a consequence? Of course! But the only thing an over-reaction does (even a referral, I think) is take a student that is much more often than not an ally in the room and turn her against me. So I had her shut it down immediately when I found it, then as she was about to leave for lunch, I called her over to conference with her and asked her what she thought her consequence should be. (Believe it or not, I did not yet have one ready for "FaceTiming in class instead of working on guided practice" LOL)

So, I'm still working out what exactly this students' consequence will be for today, (although I'm leaning toward some kind of essay on appropriate tech use/PSA/fix all the iPads backgrounds back to normal work), but until then, here's a few other ideas. 

1. Treat it like you would if the student were your own child. Especially if its an isolated incident, do your best to laugh it off, tell them to put it away, and move on to the next battle.

This is easier if you actually ARE a parent, but teachers are great at empathy, so I'm sure you'll make due. Besides the fact that you probably would have had a hand in paying for that device (or the replacement), you would also have to parent and have a relationship with this teenager after your moment of phone-smashing passion. Its tough to recover from things you say/promise/or do in moments of frustration. 

2. Call/email home and let the parents know that their son or daughter is using class time to Insta-tweet-book instead of asking a question about the course content or getting in extra practice.

 If your student is obsessive about it in your room, their parents are probably equally annoyed by the behavior and they will no doubt have your back. Make sure you back up the threat, but in my experience, kids will do a lot to avoid an effective call/email home. 

3. Have a charging station in your room away from everyone's seat. 

I have a strip by my desk where kids can plug in their chargers and put it in a box.  Time/space to charge a device is a hot commodity in my buildings, and when its in the box, its not a student's desk, distracting them with notifications every 3 minutes. 

4. Give them something to do USING IT PRODUCTIVELY.

Recording audio notes, setting a reminder for homework, responding to a backchannel discussion, pulling up a video related to their work, sending them to a page like thatquiz.org with some readymade practice (math, science, and geography). Redirecting their thumb swiping to a positive activity is an easy redirect.

5. Start a conversation about your favorite educational/learning/productivity app.

Once I put the TED app on my class iPads, my favorite question has always been from students assuming it was related to a Seth McFarland movie by the same name. :) People don't know better until they know any better - maybe your student will delete one of their 5 messaging apps and make space for your recommendation. 

What else have you done effectively? Leave a comment!

NCAA Tourney Simulation 2015

Following a process similar to last year's, I used the fan picks on Yahoo Fantasy Pick 'Em as a "true proportion," assigned integers according to those percentages for each team, and then used the randInt( function on my TI-84 to generate a number.

As an example, in the 2nd round game of Butler vs Texas, I assigned the numbers 1-60 to Butler (as the higher seed), and 61-100 to Texas. The number generated was between 1 and 60, so I chose Butler.

This year's simulation had Arizona upsetting Kentucky in the Final Four and Duke taking the championship in the final.

Here's the whole simulated bracket. Click the image for a larger view.