Share Your Best Posts in This Week's Carnival of Educators

I'm hosting this week's Carnival of Educators, and I hope you'll send in your best work as you did for me last month.  Check out last week's edition hosted at The Examiner for an idea of what others are talking about, then head to the http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_8594.htmleasy submission page. 

Also, you don't have to necessarily send in your own work--feel free to submit great blog posts you find anywhere and everywhere.

Thank you!

Consumer Ed, Math Myths, & Homework Debate [Five for Friday]

What Are the Myths About Math? [Math Mama Writes...] - Sue starts a very interesting discussion that you should contribute to!

Homework Post #2 [Kiss My Asymptotes] - Speaking of a good conversation, JT wonders if he should have his students grade their own homework and contemplates a more effective way to give student feedback.

FTC Enhances Consumer Website for Kids -This new, interactive website created by the Federal Trade Commission aims to teach kids about privacy and fraud.  There's a lot of material you could use to build a solid consumer education and media literacy unit.  Check out the Parents & Teachers page for more ideas.

Math Teachers at Play #24 [Let's Play Math]

Final Call for School Security Officer Scholarship Nominations - The National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) has extended the entry deadline for the 2010 Wren Solutions School Resource Officer (SRO) Scholarship Award. Nominations will now be accepted until May 1, 2010.  This is a great way for them to extend their education.  Read a guest post from Wren's school security expert, Bret Rachlin: How Teachers Can Help Make Their School's Security a Priority.

'Ten Cheap Lessons' Spring Break Sale: 50% Off Downloads

From now through Sunday, you can download Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition for $2.50, 50% off the original price!  Consider it a little thank you to all of the teachers who are convalescing over Spring Break.

Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition is a collection of some of my best lessons, projects and games.  While the examples in the book are drawn from my experience teaching math, these activities were chosen because they could easily be adapted for just about any subject area.  Each chapter contains a complete lesson, supporting materials, and ways to adapt and extend the idea for ELA, social studies and science classrooms.  In short, this is not just a math teacher resource book; this is a book of good ideas for any and every middle and high school teacher.

Once Monday rolls around, the price will be back to a (still reasonable) $5, so get it for 50% off while you can.  Please pass this deal along to others as well!  Thank you, as always, for your support!

Download Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition

Simple Graphic Organizer Makes Fractions a Little Less Painful

Part of my responsibilities at the after school tutoring center I work for has been to create fun, educational math activities. We use these activities for community "math fairs" where we play educational math games at nearby schools.  Recently, we held a fair for 5th and 6th grade students, so I designed an activity that would help them practice operations with fractions.

The graphic organizer is made of posterboard and has spaces for six playing cards that form different number sentences using fractions.  The long strip allows you to switch between the four operators (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) by sliding it up and down.  Students are given about half a deck of cards and can create any number sentences they want, provided that they are correct (this particular deck had the numbers 0-12 in place of face cards).  Here's an example of each operation made with the same stack of cards:

The organizer is made of three pieces.  The main piece is about 8.5" by 11", with a small square inch window cut out for the operators to show through.  The operator strip is about 1.25" by 9", longer than the width of the main piece so it can be slid back and forth.  Behind the strip is a slightly wider 1.5" by 8.5" piece taped to the main one, which forms a pocket for the operator strip to move.  It's less complicated than it sounds.

It's not so much of a game as an activity that changes each time you do it, depending on the cards you get.  The goal would be to create at least one correct number sentence with each operation.  If you're using a standard deck, you can count all face cards as 10 and aces as 1 or 11.  The alternative is to have jacks, queens and kings as 11, 12 and 13 and aces as 1 or 0.  If you really want to raise the stakes, make red cards negative and black ones positive.

You can of course do this without the organizer, and the idea's still the same.  You can also use cards in a similar way to do basic integer operations, or incorporate a number line for practice with positive and negative integers.

The Evolution of Mr. D: "Spring break (is being spent working)"

This is part of a year-long series looking back at the journal I wrote when I was just starting out my teaching career (at that point, I taught middle school social studies). Read more about his project here. Next installment: April 10th. Sorry this is a day late!

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

I think I actually feel better not doing anything special for spring break because that's what I'm used to. I never went on the traditional spring break trips during college--actually, I didn't go on any type of trip. I worked and worked. Seeing how little money I saved and how much debt I managed to rack up, I'm not sure exactly what I did with all of it. I probably spent it on alcohol.

Last week went pretty well. I am happy to report huge breakthroughs with the one student I've been working with for the last month or so--she actually stayed for tutorials to do some extra work and seems to have made up with the writing teacher.

Also, two more students came back from the alternative center last week and were definitely behaving better and doing their work. We'll see if my attempts to reach out to them while they were gone work in the long term. If the last student who came back is any indication, it should be wildly successful.

Some of my former students came to visit after school on Thursday (during tutorials). They were all playing on the girls JV soccer team at the stadium (which is next to the middle school and not the high school). The student who's written me many times wanted to talk to me about some problems she was having, but there wasn't much time with all my tutorial kids running around. I did go and watch her and the others play their game, and afterward she told me that playing took her mind off her problems, so she was okay.

One of the others told me that she didn't like their World Geography teacher because they "don't learn anything" and even though my class had been hard, "at least I learned something". It's not the first time I've heard that and while I'm sad they're getting screwed this year, I'm happy they feel that way about my class.

That's all I can remember about last week, mainly because I've spent the last 3 1/2 days thinking very little thinking about school. My spring break has been pretty mellow, I went out this weekend as usual but now I'm just getting some things done around town and around the house.

Thursday I have my big interview with the charter school in Donna. It's definitely where I want to teach next year, but I'll be moving out to Weslaco probably with my friends and teaching somewhere out there no matter what happens.

I also will be going to the first quinceanera on Saturday for one of my former students. I'm very excited, but I have no idea what to do. Am I supposed to dress up formally for this? Am I expected to bring a gift? If so, what in the heck do I bring? It should be fun any way you slice it.

March Madness Probability Activity & More

I've been glad to see an upswing in the number of different March Madness math lessons being shared online recently (see below for links).  Each one seems to be focusing on different parts of the tournament or looking at it through a different lens.  Designing an interesting probability activity based around the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament has been a goal for years, so I'm excited to unveil this first version.

The main focus of this activity uses the success of teams by seed (since 1979).  First, students find the probability of a given seed winning the tournament both as a fraction and percent.  Then, they use those numbers to answer a number of questions.  There's an opportunity to talk about the difference between experimental and theoretical probability, as well as compound probability (see the challenge question).

I would follow up this activity by having students fill out a bracket using the statistics they've learned or whatever method they choose.  Personally, I enjoy picking the winners based on which mascot would win a no-holds-barred steel cage match.  After each round, you can have students update their brackets, recalculate their probability of winning, and compare theoretical with experimental probability again based on the results.  After the tournament is over, have students tally points for the correctness of their bracket (1 point for each opening round game, 2 for the second round, and so on, with 6 points for predicting the correct champion).

This is the kind of obvious real life math connection that almost any student can understand and get excited about, so we should do what we can to work it into our curricula.

March Madness Probability Activity
NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament bracket [via ESPN]

Here are some other lessons, activities and ideas based on the big tournament from around the web:

1. Figure the Winner - Focuses on percentage, measures of central tendency
2. Elements of Binary in the NCAA Basketball Tournament - Focuses on binary trees, logarithms, laws of exponents, geometric series and sequences, and probability (among other advanced topics)
3. March Madness web quest - Designed for middle school math students.
4. Interdisciplinary March Madness project - For grades 4-6
5. Scoring March Madness - How to score brackets after the tournament.
6. Adding Academics to the Big Dance - The Quick and the ED discusses graduation rates of the teams in this year's tourney.

Have Fun With Your Students By Telling Them Unbelievable Stories [Video]

If you're interested in getting a review copy of my upcoming book, Teaching is Not a Four Letter Word: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Job, email me at teachforever@gmail.com.

Mr. D TV is my weekly video series where I give advice to teachers on just about any topic. If you have a question you'd like me to answer, email me. If you like the video, check out the last week's episode or my YouTube channel for more. See you next week!

Save Ink, Your Children, Your Sense of Humor and More [Five for Friday]

2 Dead Economists In An Extreme Rap Battle [Consumerist] - Keynes vs. Hayek throw down over their economic theories.  I'm waiting for Alexander Hamilton vs. Thomas Jefferson in a battle of nascent political parties.

Extreme Word Problem Writing [The Number Warrior] - I'm all for new and exciting ways to engage students, but I think word problems can be more effective if they just make more sense and are a bit more relevant.  These extreme questions are certainly interesting if not useless in the classroom, similar to those in the SAT parody book I reviewed recently.

Printliminator Quickly, Easily Makes Any Page Printer Friendly [Lifehacker] - Save on ink, paper and copies with this handy tool.  I've also shared similar resources here.

Stop Overscheduling Your Children! [Wired: GeekDad] - Jenny Williams makes a case for giving your kids time to be kids.

Free Math, Language Arts and Geography Games [The Innovative Educator]

Read My Guest Post on Educational Games Research

Last week I wrote my take on the present and future of educational video games for John Rice over at Educational Games Research:

No Need to Reinvent the Wheel to Revolutionize Educational Video Games

I'm interested to hear your thoughts and feedback.  I encourage you to check out the rest of EGR as well; it's one of my must-read blogs.  Keep an eye out for a guest post from John in the near future, right here!

Graduation Rates, Faculty Meeting Fun & More [Five for Friday]

1. 10 Things to Do When You Only Have 5 Minutes Left in Class [TheApple]
2. Faculty Meeting Pet Peeves [Sup Teach?] - They must have visited many schools I've taught in!
3. Innovative Ideas That Make Sense for Those Hungry for Math Instruction [The Innovative Educator]
4. Whose Job Is It Anyway? [Math Tales from the Spring] - Mrs. H makes an excellent point about graduation rates.
5. 3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology [Mashable]