Subject: Hit - Algebra I Project Ideas
From: Kelly M Hoppe
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:30:15 -0500
X-Message-Number: 3
Good Morning,
Below are the replies I received. Thanks to all who shared.
•a site you might want to suggest to your teachers of this course and others:
http://kidseducationalwebsites.blogspot.com/2011/01/pbl-examples-of-math-project-ideas.html
•A great end of year project is an A-B-C book. Students make a
different illustrated page for each letter of the alphabet, defining
an algebraic term. It's a great review, and you could show them
various A-B-C books to give them some thematic ideas. I've done this
in reading classes, and I taught ESL Algebra where we kept a running
"book" of terms like this throughout the year. If you have access,
kids can create images on the computer, so there's a technology piece,
too.
•My daughter's class designed fountains using equations for arc of
water. Pretty neat. They have to graph and plan the flow of water.
•Have them assign their students to make a voicethread or prezi or any
other online media presentation tool over the concept that they are
studying. Can they make an instructional presentation so that others
can watch it and understand the concept?
•One of our Algebra I teachers does a very successful tech project.
It is her semester review and takes 4 days in the lab. Each student
is given a type of problem and asked to create a PPT with hyperlinks
to 4 answers. One of the answers is correct with a fun "good work"
comment. The other three say incorrect answer, try again, and perhaps
some tips on what to do. The last day the kids go from computer to
computer solving all the problems. She has a template for the PPT, so
the kids don't have to figure out how to do all the hyperlinks from
scratch.
Interesting point, she got the idea from a first grade teacher during
a technology training years ago. The elem teacher had done work for
college/grad school (?)and her project was this type of PPT for young
students learning 2+2 =4!
Hope this helps!
•One area I'm exploring for math is an idea called computational
thinking, which involves learning computer programming to solve
math-related inquiries. Google has a great collection of information
and resources on this subject. Here's a
link http://www.google.com/edu/computational-thinking/
The main thing is not to just have them do a research project on a
famous mathematician or something like a bird unit, but to make math
interesting in the context of a real-world application.
