This last week and a half I've tried inserting little fun things here and there. I'm by no means suggesting spending the first 15 minutes of class sharing funny stories and doing stuff that isn't at all math related, but I'll give you an example. Yesterday I started my power point by asking, "Would you rather... have a Corvette or a Camaro?" We took a vote and spent 20 seconds discussing what color we would want. The very next slide was about going on a road trip in our favorite car. We had to use the segment addition postulate to figure out which trip we would want to pay for the gas for. It was a simple way to make sure they understood the concepts of adding the parts to get the whole and checking their understanding of tick marks and congruent segments. The car discussion took probably less than a minute, but it gave every single student a chance to share their opinion and talk about something that they couldn't be wrong about. After that, we were able to do more math examples, and they were able to focus better, I felt.
I try to put in a 1-slide comic almost every other day at the beginning of my power point for the kids. It gives them a chance to smile and laugh before we get into the harder stuff. I see them trying the examples with a better attitude. It could just be that it's the beginning of the school year, but I'm going to continue to put in these little places where they can have fun in math class, and see if it continues to make a difference.
Another non math related thought is about the comics. I've learned in the 2 that I've shown so far this year that kids have a hard time understanding comics sometimes. They're used to having things given to them very directly so when you give them a picture with a few words, they have to actually think to put together what the comic is all about. Granted, they're pretty simple, but even that comic is building their reasoning and logic skills.
I'm also looking forward to a fun activity later this week when we'll get to show the kids an example of linear regression in a fun and authentic way : )
ps. I <3 my Mimio
I try to put in a 1-slide comic almost every other day at the beginning of my power point for the kids. It gives them a chance to smile and laugh before we get into the harder stuff. I see them trying the examples with a better attitude. It could just be that it's the beginning of the school year, but I'm going to continue to put in these little places where they can have fun in math class, and see if it continues to make a difference.
Another non math related thought is about the comics. I've learned in the 2 that I've shown so far this year that kids have a hard time understanding comics sometimes. They're used to having things given to them very directly so when you give them a picture with a few words, they have to actually think to put together what the comic is all about. Granted, they're pretty simple, but even that comic is building their reasoning and logic skills.
I'm also looking forward to a fun activity later this week when we'll get to show the kids an example of linear regression in a fun and authentic way : )
ps. I <3 my Mimio
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