Twitter-Length Tasks can be quickly and simply explained, yet allow for extensive exploration. Which has the greater portion of its area remaining: a circle with an inscribed square cut out or a square with an inscribed circle cut out? How do you know? Choose dimensions of the circle and square so the shaded regions will be equal. What about other shapes… Read more →
Twitter-Length Tasks can be quickly and simply explained, yet allow for extensive exploration. Fill in each square in a tic-tac-toe board with a different number between 0 and 5. That means at least some of the squares will have decimals or fractions. Try to make as many rows and columns as possible add up to whole numbers. Try using numbers between… Read more →
Twitter-Length Tasks can be quickly and simply explained, yet allow for extensive exploration. I recently downloaded a calculator app on my phone. Then I was surprised that I could only use a few keys – the rest of the keys were only available as in-app purchases. The black keys were included for free. The red keys cost $1 each. The blue… Read more →
Twitter-Length Tasks can be quickly and simply explained, yet allow for extensive exploration. Ron’s mom makes cookies by rolling out cookie dough in a rectangular pan, then cutting out the cookies with a cookie cutter or a knife. Her kids like it better when the cookies are all the same shape. It’s not always easy to use up all the dough… Read more →
I’ve mentioned the ice cabinets at this chain of convenience stores before. They provide some nice data points for a linear relationship. I finally built a short Desmos activity around the photos. Even though the short activity could be polished, it has a couple of nice features on slide #3 The user is prompted to enter an equation, and the… Read more →
Region 4 Educational Service Center hosted their annual Math Conference, and they usually offer a handful of sessions addressing students with special needs (EL students, students with IEPs, struggling learners, and more). This year, I attended a fantastic session by a new presenter, Leximar Irizarry. The heart of Ms. Irizarry’s session was a cluster of five stations that attempted to replicate… Read more →
I once fixed a broken cruise control on my SUV. I used an internet search engine to look up the specific problem I encountered, I found the exact part number to order from the dealership, and a couple of online videos gave me step-by-step instructions on restoring everything to working order. Of course, I still know nothing about how cruise control… Read more →
Meet Taco, my trained snail. I give him signals, and he walks up and down a tree in my backyard. If you’ve worked with integer tiles, you can see some quick connections. The yellow commands look like positive integer tiles, and the red commands look like negative integer tiles. After students experiment with Taco the snail, they are ready to… Read more →
We all stumble across moments or images that would make for great math explorations. For example, every time I stop at Buc-ee’s I photograph the cabinets of ice for sale. Someday, I am sure I will make an interesting activity predicting how much a bag of 30 pounds of ice should cost. On a recent trip, however, I discovered that… Read more →
A few years ago, I was talking with a teacher on my team, asking him how he coached students who struggle with word problems. His toolbox of problem solving pedagogy boiled down to one sentence: “I tell them to read the problem again.” While it is vital to make sure students understand the problem, we can help them develop strategies… Read more →