UEN Assignment!!! Woohoo!

UEN has so many incredible resources to use for the classroom, it's awesome! There are a lot of good ideas for math that can help student better understand the concepts that we are learning. When I looked at the thinkfinity activities, I found some really great activities that will enable kids to change the shape/size of objects so they can better understand area and concepts like that. I would like to have an interactive map like the one I found of Canada, to help them compute area of certain states or territories.

Another thing I like about UEN is that students can have access to these resources at home. So maybe I want them to watch a video on algebraic functions and equations before class, I can give them a couple days to look it over and maybe have a small quiz to prove that they at least looked at the video. For those who might be interested in playing chess or strategy games, this video can be incorporated to show the use of algebra in chess.

For the interactives, there are many games that are interesting to look at and play. Students

might not want to perform these problems, but when they are put on something like a balancer, the visual effect might clicks with a student, and they suddenly understand! There is also a tool called the function machine, that will help students grasp the concept of what a function is, and what it does.

I really love the idea of a lesson plan I saw for Algebra called Car Shop. It takes about 5 class periods, and encouragement for the students to stay on task because there will be a lot of group work. But it's a great, applicable activity for students to prepare themselves for when they go out and purchase a car or any large purchases. I wish I would have done this activity in high school! They have to calculate the interest rate, as well as their monthly payments. Then they are assigned to create a slope intercept formula for their information. Very interesting!!! This will help conquer Standard 2, Objectives 2 as well as 3 in the Algebra core curriculum. These state that students should be able to "model and interpret problems having a constant rate of change using linear functions."

VIDEO BLOG

I really liked the videos, especially the music! That made me want to watch just because I loved the music, but the information given was also interesting. I just saw the "Did you know" video as an interesting clip on the way technology is growing. It seemed similar with the point it was trying to get across as the "Pay attention" video we watched a couple weeks ago. "A Vision of Students Today" was interesting, mostly because it was collaborated by students themselves and I could relate to everything that they said. I had an interesting talk with my parents today about how much technology is expanding, and how I need to continue to familiarize myself with it so I can be a "hip" teacher and educate my students in the ways that are cool and interesting to them. If not, why will they even care about math? All they have to do is type in a problem on the calculator and it will give the answer. Then they will spend the rest of their time on facebook or texting. If I can somehow find a way to incorporate things like this in the classroom, I will be so much more effective!