Tools

For math teachers in a virtual setting, utilizing Desmos could make for a great tool for students utilizing a scientific and graphing calculator. Illustrative Mathematics can give different tasks for teachers to allow their students to explore concepts. PBL works can be a tool for teachers to bring project-based learning into the classroom.

The three technologies I wanted to share were NearPod, a Bitmoji Locker, and Screencastify. NearPod is a resource that allows you to either create your own or choose from interactive presentations where you can insert different types of questions, polls, games, and more for students to participate in! A Bitmoji locker is a great activity for students to express who they are in a time where they cannot decorate real lockers. Screencastify is a Chrome Extension that allows you to record a video while displaying a webpage or document.

My social justice resource share was about Mathalicious. I enjoyed the name of the website, and it turns out they have good social justice math lessons. I did notice, many of the lessons I'd consider more social justice focused, teachers had to pay for a subscription which wasn't cheap. They do have free lessons as well which teachers can look at and modify to use in their classrooms.

My social justice math resource share was a lesson from France Harper's site. The lesson was on variable equations and driving safety. Students use mathematics to find the reaction time and stopping distance that factor into speeding and car accidents. My placement is a very white suburban area, so I was struggling to find a social justice issue to connect to a math lesson. Speeding and car accidents is a social issue that does not discriminate. It was applicable to my school's community and the content fit the standards of the class. This lesson is complete with step-by-step instructions, standards, anticipated student responses, and more! This would be helpful for people in a similar demographic.

This lesson was an introduction to transformation of functions and analyzing how different values based on where they are (a, h, k) effects how the graph of the parent function changes. I don't believe my task was as cognitively demanding. However, I think it is good for other teachers to see Desmos has pre-set lessons for teachers to use with their students instead of having to create a program from scratch. The folder contains my lesson plan, monitoring tool for questions, directions for the desmos exploration, the powerpoint for the lesson, and my reflection on how it went.

This lesson was focused on finding composite area and perimeter and finding the area of shaded regions. The main task for this lesson was a "This is Me" graphing task. Students were to draw themselves on graph paper (physical graph paper or digital graph paper) using geometric shapes. Students had to use certain shapes and then finding the individual areas and perimeters along with their composite area and perimeter. Looking back, the task was not cognitively demanding. We worked through problems together as a class where the formulas were given to them, and then they worked on their tasks. I do think the "This is Me" task is a great activity for area and perimeter that allows students to express themselves and more cognitively demanding than book problems. However, it would be more helpful to allow students to try and find the formulas on their own based on their findings as opposed to how I did it. In the folder, you will find my lesson plan, monitoring tool, reflection, the student facing book problems we did, the "This is Me" assignment directions, and my example.

This lesson was students' first exposure to complex numbers. The main task of my lesson was after the students noting the powers of imaginary numbers is cyclical, they were asked to simplify i to a large power. It was good to see students' ideas at how they solved this problem because they were able to use each other and different modes of thinking to simplify it down. From my experience, they appeared to be engaged and enjoying trying to bounce ideas off of one another. In the folder is my lesson plan, monitoring tool, powerpoint (virtually, this took me 3 classes to get through), and my reflection.

This lesson was focused on adding and subtracting integers. The main task for this lesson was "Integer Battleship." The task consisted of them placing four ships of different sizes on a coordinate plane, with one in each quadrant. Then, they were to list out the coordinates of each of their ships, add together all of the x-coordinates, and find the difference in the y-coordinates (going left to right). The subtraction aspect of the task was the cognitively demanding part since this would have been the first time they were attempting this. After they finished their addition and subtraction, they could actually play battleship with a partner. Finally, they would discuss with their partner how they added their x-coordinates and their thought process on how to subtract the y-coordinates. In the folder, you will find my lesson plan, monitoring tool, reflection, integer battleship task, student facing homework questions, and peer review rubric students used to evaluate their partners from the discussion.