Grade 11 Math Lesson Ideas

In class we had two demonstrations for teaching content in the grade 11 math curriculum. One concept was from the grade 11 U/C class and the other from the grade 11 college level. I will first talk about the grade 11 U/C activity.

Spaghetti sine is an activity that can be used in a grade 11 U/C or grade 11 university level math course to help students understand the sine function. This activity would be used during the trigonometric functions unit.

Image retrieved from: http://www.cwu.edu/math/sites/cts.cwu.edu.math/files/images/Spaghetti_Sine_lg.jpg

This activity requires students to cut pieces of raw spaghetti based on a radians/degree wheel. As students start cutting the spaghetti they should start to notice a trend once they make it all the way around the circle for cutting spaghetti pieces. This provides students with a visual representation of where the sine function originates from and can be used to explore other topics such as periods, amplitude and transformations of trigonometric functions.

The next activity was for grade 11 college mathematics and was very practically suited towards choosing an appropriate car insurance company to save you money. The goal of the activity was to figure out how much car insurance would cost with driving school, and whether or not participating in driving school will save you money on your car insurance in the long run. I found this activity very interesting because I love to save money (don't we all?!) so I thought this would be an excellent lesson during the financial unit that will grab the attention of students easily.

Streaming in High School

In class we discussed the idea of streaming in high school. Streaming is placing a student in either academic, applied or locally developed based classes. The stream chosen is often based on the students "best" learning style. Academic classes tend to be more abstract whereas applied classes tend to be more "hands-on." Locally developed classes provided the necessary skills students need to be literate in the subject area but often omit abstract concepts.

The issue I have with streaming is that it limits the students options for their future. If a student is great at mathematics they will likely be in academic math classes but if they have a learning disability for reading and writing they may struggle in English classes which would put them in applied English classes. The issue with this is that you need a grade 12 University English credit to apply to Universities and if the student is a great mathematician but not an amazing writer they unfortunately cannot attend university for anything math related due to the stream they were placed in.

Another issue with streaming is that it happens even before the students enter high school. The students grade 8 teacher will often suggest which stream certain students should be placed in when entering high school. This means the students have to decide their academic future when in just grade 8! I find that unacceptable. We should give the students the opportunity to show their potential in grade 9 and 10 and destream the courses so there isn't so much pressure on students and their parents deciding their academic future at such a young age.

For mathematics in grade 9 the two streams can be broken down as follows:

The applied stream is actually very similar to the academic stream in grade 9 with the only big difference being the omission of the analytic geometry unit. The purpose of these streams is to cater to the different learners present in the school. If we create an environment that positively fosters the learning of every student though, whether math is their strength or weakness, I believe that the streaming would not be necessary.

Strategies and Activities for Grade 9 and 10 Academic Math Classes

This week in class we looked at strategies and activities for grade 9 and 10 academic math classes. Daria started the class with a great activity called Battle Slopes which was an interesting way to reinforce the idea of slope in a grade 9 math class.

Battle Slopes had the same goal as the game Battleship, you had to find the location of the other persons markers to win the game. The twist with battle slopes though was that you could only find the other persons markers using equations such as x+1 and graphing said equation on the grid. If the graph of your equation goes through one of your opponents markers you can deduce the location of their "ship."

This game was very fun and had a good combination of strategy and fairness involved. Some strategies would involve doing things such as starting off with a small slope ie. y=x then translating that line either up or down ie. y=x+1 or y = x - 1. The fairness is a result of the randomness with the markers placed by your opponent as both students playing the game will have an equal opportunity to find the location of the markers based solely on the luck of your equation line hitting one of the markers. 

  

Image retrieved from: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbm3uzi3RoJ9EVo9b4W_RWbmoYykoVyshOjxcCoQt64iMvljmsPn2dqHOhtck4Cg9GWb9ZITsV5qU1ASEGYV9DX5edKGVKBolXI_ikopcznVknY-Y1EuTOJ-qd8vnIIXMggUP-xp6xil2v/s1600/DSCN0747.JPG

Overall I believe this activity would be a good reinforcing tool for practicing slope. This activity could also be used if a lesson finishes early and students need work to do or if students finish a task early. It could even be used later in a future unit as a way for students to review for the upcoming exam.

There are other resources and technologies that can be used to help reinforce other topics in grade 9 and 10 academic classes such as:

Desmos
Manipulatives
Graphing Calculators

It should be noted though that technology should only be used during a lesson if it helps reinforce the learning of the new material, not just as a gimmick tool.