Math and Video Conferencing

I guess it's been a while since I've posted something, but I just finished an email and think it's worthwhile to share some strategies that Shawn Ward and I came up with for a middle school math teacher in one of our districts:

1. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame offer some math related sessions that Stephanie Vandelinder might find helpful for her students.

2. NASA has some math-related sessions:
http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/catalog/details/?cid=521 (moon math)
http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/catalog/details/?cid=292 (rations & proportions)
http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/catalog/details/?cid=600 (line-up with math)
http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/catalog/details/?cid=286 (simple machines)

3. You could find experts in different math-related fields who might present how they use math in their jobs (i.e., software engineer, computer programmer, statistician, restaurant manager, architect…). Here is what Shawn said to me: the teacher… "should evaluate her whole yearly plans, and see where she can fit people in at the end of the chapter and where she can successfully implement a project in there that the kids could work on independently while she covers the critical points needed for the chapter. I think that, in math anyways, project based learning is pretty critical to keeping their interests." (and I think that’s essential in any subject, too!)

4. Collaborative Projects:
a. Quiz Bowls (students develop questions about math to share in a game show format)

b. Monster Match (Students could create a drawing or 3 dimensional shape and write specific directions for how to create their monster. Then they would share their directions with the other class and see how close the come to recreating the monster. This could get pretty picky, they could use formulas, require students to measure specific angles and use specific shapes in the creation of the monster to help the other class recreate it as close to the original as possible.)

c. Shawn had another idea: "… one topic that math teachers in geometry teach is congruent triangles. I used to do a project with my kids in Watkins where I gave them each 20 sticks, they had to create a bridge and include congruent sets of each classification of triangles and keep the weight under 2 lbs (glue was crazy). They had to sketch out their plans on graph paper, then prove to the class that they met the requirements, and then we tested their strengths and the winners of each class I bought lunch for. I introduced this project at the beginning of the unit and gave them the course of the unit to do the work. What I didn't do, but would love to, would be to have a structural engineer and architect videoconference at the end of the unit to show what they did was relevant."

Email us if you'd like us to research IVC ideas for you: DL@gstboces.org

Do you have ideas for ways IVC could integrate into the math classroom? I'd love to hear your comments!