Mini-Project Absolute Value

I saw this idea on Growing Exponentially (H Kohn)'s blog.

Students ask 25 people a question that has a numerical answer.  The question should evoke responses above and below the actual answer.

Then they create a graph of the responses, analyze their graph, and illustrate their poster.

My students are putting their work in Google slides.

Here are the first few submitted ... love to show off my students' work!

Mini-Project and Lesson Planning

This week I want to get back into my blogging routine.

I gave a unit test last Wednesday and Thursday on the attributes of exponential and logarithm functions.  Friday and Monday are are given to the district benchmark test.

Then TUESDAY .... we just into solving exponential and logarithm functions.  I am working on last minute plans for the unit!

So with the long testing sequence, I decided to assign a mini-project.  I borrowed ideas from Fawn and from Sam to create a very similar mini-project assignment.






This is a very specific homework assignment ... requiring students to explore some math beyond our typical curriculum.

Already a few students have sent their work via email.  A couple of them worked on a post from Math Munch and explored the app called Silk.  Oh what fun!  Because students talked about it, I had to go to Silk ... I created a flower and loved it!

Tuesday is coming fast ... I know I'm starting with Mathalicious, iPod dPreciation!  From there ... hmmm ...

Textbook Revision Idea

I read with interest Dan Meyer's plan for Makeover Mondays this summer.

My workplace, curriculum, team ... they were all new this past year. I was surprised to learn that the Algebra teachers didn't use the textbook at all. I am not a fan of textbooks, but to not use them at all seemed drastic. After all, all resources have some value.  As it was we created almost all of our own materials.  Some were OK, maybe a tad better than the book and some were not.

So, I am taking Meyer's challenge to heart in an effort to create more worthwhile learning activities for my students. I am looking through the textbook that we don't use to find problems that could be revised and made useful in our curriculum.

Today I chose #24, from page 240, of Holt Algebra 1 published in 2007.

I chose this problem because we start the year studying functions and relations.  We do quite a bit of graphing, analyzing graphs, discussing domain, range, continuous, and discrete.

I also chose this problem because this last year while my family was reading "real food" blogs and working on maximizing nutrition, I noticed that my ninth graders ate a lot of junk food.  Now I don't propose to preach "real food" to them, but I thought it might be fun in the first week of school for everyone to bring their favorite snack food.  (I've heard that the way to man's heart is through his stomach and I'm wondering if this maxim will help me win the hearts of my 14-15 year olds!)  The only "rule" is that students must bring the snack in the original packaging so that we can use that packaging for math!  (I'll bring a few snacks myself so that we have plenty to work with).

I'll ask teams of students to chose 5 snacks to compare.  I'll ask students to create two graphs each illustrating the relationship between 2 elements of nutrition on the packaging.  First I'll ask students to examine the relationship between fat grams and fat calories as pictured in the textbook problem.  For the second graph students can choose any of the nutrition facts to compare.  I'll ask students to create a mini poster with their snack packaging and the graphs.  Then we will discuss if the elements of nutrition they compared represented functions or relations and why.

My specific goal in reworking this problem is to provide real data for students to analyze.  Additional side goals include enlisting their interest in math class and bringing attention to the nutritional value of the food they snack on.

PS ... during the summer I hope to find a really good article ... something short and on target for teens that discusses nutritional values as a bonus to this math activity.

mini-projects?

I've mentioned before that while I am a veteran educator I've been out of the classroom for several years.  In past years I would have had one project each six weeks.  This time around I can't seem to fit that in.  I am used to having more professional leeway in how and when to teach topics than I have now.  Our district has a curriculum guide and a calendar that says a topic can be given so many days.  Our school expects all algebra teachers to be on the same topic (can teach that topic how we want) and test on the same day.  I'm not used to quite so much structure.

So I'm reaching back to what I would have done ... and would like to try again.  I can remember a few years back my Algebra 2 students wrote creative stories and poems with vocabulary.  Somewhere I still have a couple of examples ... wish I could find them for you now.

I especially like "mini-projects" that can be done in a short period of time.  Here are 2 examples of mini-projects that I would have had students complete in the units on Slope as Rate of Change and Linear Equations.

[scribd id=116090622 key=key-hsjevgplz1d0znsyk4o mode=scroll]

As we get ready to study systems of equations in January, a simple mini-project might be to analyze cost, profit, and decision making in a business venture.

I'm curious if others involve students in mini-projects.  Involving students in mini-projects helps to put the learning in students' hands and gives them an outlet for creativity in math.