https://teacher.desmos.com/carnival/walkthrough#cannonman
This is so cool! It's like graphing stories, but the interactivity really helps hone in on kids' misconceptions around graphing. All those things about graphs just being pictures, about understanding what makes a function (beyond the vertical line test...), etc. are captured in the well-chosen scenarios.
I talk a lot of smack about blended learning or personalized learning or whatever they're calling it these days, but I am in no way opposed to technology use in the classroom. The Function Carnival is a great example of technology usage because it provides something that pencil and paper can't. Sure, it's probably engaging to a kid because it's on the computer and it has fun animation, but technology purely for engagement's sake is not enough. This technology also doesn't just feel like a way for teachers to measure some percentage of material learned. Those things are fine, but not really enough (at least for me). But this tool helps kids deepen their understanding of function from very different perspective. That is what technology should do--it should enhance teaching, not replace it.
Showing posts with label Functions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Functions. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Elevator Math
Eli Lansley of the Lansley Brothers Blog posted these pictures of interesting floor numbering systems in buildings.
The first he found in Israel, the second in Hackensack, New Jersey
I have definitely taught kids to think about negative numbers and number lines by thinking about elevators. I don't know much about teaching younger grades or teaching negative numbers for the first time, but I can totally imagine giving kids a picture like this and asking them to describe the building where this elevator lives. Or some kind of problem about a building that adds an underground garage with the question "How should they label the number on the elevator button?" Even with the standard US systems for labeling underground space (P1, P2, P3 and stuff like that), I think it's interesting to talk about what order those should go in. Maybe it's not that exciting, but it feels like there's a little something there.
Also thinking about elevator numbering, I feel like there might be something with the way that many European countries label their floors by having floor 1 as the floor above the lobby. Or with Americans skipping the 13th floor. Is there some kind of function rule you can write to figure out how many floors the building actually has? It would be a piecewise function because the rule for calculating how many floors for buildings above 13 would be different than for buildings with fewer than 13 floors.
The first he found in Israel, the second in Hackensack, New Jersey
I have definitely taught kids to think about negative numbers and number lines by thinking about elevators. I don't know much about teaching younger grades or teaching negative numbers for the first time, but I can totally imagine giving kids a picture like this and asking them to describe the building where this elevator lives. Or some kind of problem about a building that adds an underground garage with the question "How should they label the number on the elevator button?" Even with the standard US systems for labeling underground space (P1, P2, P3 and stuff like that), I think it's interesting to talk about what order those should go in. Maybe it's not that exciting, but it feels like there's a little something there.
Also thinking about elevator numbering, I feel like there might be something with the way that many European countries label their floors by having floor 1 as the floor above the lobby. Or with Americans skipping the 13th floor. Is there some kind of function rule you can write to figure out how many floors the building actually has? It would be a piecewise function because the rule for calculating how many floors for buildings above 13 would be different than for buildings with fewer than 13 floors.
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