Root 2

The other day, I posted this Vine:  

[Note: I just started using Vine last week.  I know I'm late to the party with Vine but it's not too late to state that it's an awesome way for students to document and share their ideas and creations.  Doesn't require any video editing skills.  Just a steady(ish) hand and a smartphone or tablet]

Root 2

You can figure out the relationships between the green, white, yellow, red and grey rods from the Vine using a bit of geometry.  Its a nice exercise that really makes you realize how smart the inventors of K'NEX were.  It also becomes obvious why I titled the Vine 'Root 2'.

There are actually hundreds of math questions that you can generate from the Vine.  Questions involving shapes, proportion, angles, colours, similarity, scale, pattern recognition, length, measurement, area, parallel and perpendicular lines, special triangles, manipulating root expressions, polar coordinates and more.  These topics cover every grade and even some university stuff.  K'NEX is a great tool for teaching a wide variety of math to students of any level or ability.  I can't believe I didn't use it for one of my lesson or unit planning assignments for OISE.

Extend...

Once you figure out the relationships between the lengths of the rods, you can start to ask some more interesting questions.  For example:

• What lengths can be made by combining the pieces and what lengths can't be made
• Is it possible to construct a 3-4-5 triangle with K'NEX?  The math gets interesting because you have to mix rational and irrational numbers.  
• How about this question: Is there a piece or combination of pieces that will perfectly join two opposite corners of this cube (below)?  Prove it.  With math.  Even if you had a piece that was the correct length, would you be able to connect it? 

Answers and more K'NEX to come...

Internship Debrief

This internship with the TCDSB 21C/AICT team was the last piece of my OISE education.  The 5 short weeks flew by!  Throughout the internship, I met whole bunch of interesting, inspirational and fearless people that taught me so much in such a short amount of time.  It's super refreshing to see positive change happening in education, even if it is one teacher at a time.  It is only a matter of time before momentum takes care of the rest.

When I started the blog, I knew that you should always plan lessons with your specific students in mind but what I realized is that it is also really hard do do if you don't actually have any class your doing it for.  I thought the freedom of not having a specific class or course would enable me to generate tons of ideas but I actually think that made it more challenging.  Ideas were broad and I didn't really know where to cut off each entry.  I think my more successful entries were the ones that were less general and I tailored more specifically to one course or unit.  Despite that, I think it was a great exercise for me to really learn the neXt Lesson Framework and start thinking about what my future classroom would look like.  I was able to complete entries on 20 lesson ideas (although I was actually there for 23 days).  

The most valuable lessons I learned come from hearing the stories of teachers' challenges and successes of implementing 21st Century Learning.  Here's just one example that stands out for me:  At a workshop, one teacher talked about how she used Minecraft in her class to teach her Grade 6 students about surface area and volume.  The idea actually came from one of her usually disengaged students.  He and the rest of the class loved it and didn't believe it when the teacher told them that they were doing math. 

As my education at OISE comes to an end, I see one big challenge (in addition to just getting a teaching job):  professional development.  How in the world do I keep up with new and ever-changing pedagogical research, educational policy, and all that lingo?  This might find its way into future blog entries.  For now, I will continue to surround myself with people who care about education and hope to learn from them. 

Thanks to the TCDSB 21C/AICT team for having me as their intern!  It was a dream internship.  Way more than I ever could have hoped for.  I hope to be attending your workshops as a teacher someday soon!