Nov 27 - Nov 29
Thanksgiving Vacation
All Day
Movement in Math Class
November 1st 2013
During the month of October, Ms. Meghan Remm and her students combined movement and math to apply mathematical concepts using some fun, interactive lessons. Early in the month, Ms. Remm's eighth grade Advanced Algebra students were learning about parent graphs of functions and how those graphs move around the Cartesian plane. Ms. Remm converted her classroom into a gigantic plane complete with an x- and y-axis, each marked diligently using post-it notes on the floor. The students became "the points" and analyzed and interpreted the function rules in order to determine where they should move on the post-it note axes.
During the week of ERB Testing, classes in the middle school were slightly longer. Ms. Remm seized the opportunity provided by these extended class periods to create an interactive lesson to help her seventh grade Algebra I students learn about slope. Students looked outside to find a rectangular object. Then, they calculated the slope of that object's diagonal. Ms. Remm explains, "This activity was great because it started a conversation with students about how the concept of slope is applied in the real world. When students are able to make the connection between the abstract ideas in math class class to the real world around them, they can often appreciate what they are learning on a deeper level."
