#70 Days Creative thinking!

Each year, to maintain my certification in gifted education in Texas, I am required to get six hours of training. This week, I attended a training with a focus on creativity. The team that made the presentation offered several good ideas for infusing creativity in curriculum.

Here are some ideas that can be adapted to math class:

Idea One:  Forced association with sketching and writing:

Idea Two:  Fluency/Flexibility Exercise:
When asking students to brainstorm fluency lists, give them a short time (maybe 2 minutes).  Then have students draw a line and do it again.

After they create their category lists, have students share their various categories.  How are the categories different?

Idea Three:  Thunks

Idea Four: 6 degrees of separation

The presenters shared other ideas ... including synectics and "which one doesn't belong!"  They also share a number of excellent motivational videos.  I hope to review them to see if any of them would work with students.

I look forward to infusing creative thinking in my math class - opportunities for students to flex their  divergent thinking.

Creative Art Project Introduced!

Yes, some students were ho-hum ... but others ...

... explored all the trig functions to see what shapes they would make
... imported a picture into Demos to see if he could outline it with equations
... discussed the virtues of a single drawing versus a scene
... asked if abstract drawings were acceptable
... tried a few basic functions and how to limit the domain and range

I wish now I hadn't given students 3 whole weeks to complete the project ... I can't wait to see their art!

So what is expected and why?

Our algebra 2 curriculum is structured around a series of parent functions.  We introduce the concept of functions at the beginning of the year.  And then we start marching through seven of them!  With linear functions we explore systems of equations.  Then we look at absolute value functions and how they are related to linear functions.  We end our first semester with an intensive study of quadratic functions ... first examining the graph, transformations, and using graphs to solve problems.  And then we solve quadratics and problem solve some more.

In our second semester we jump into radical equations first since they are inverses of quadratics ... and then we take a detour to study rational exponents.  Next up are exponential functions and logarithms.  And last we learn about rational functions.  That's where we are now.  We are finishing our first unit on rationals which is the graphing unit.  Then we will simplify, solve, and apply rational functions to word problems.

So this creative art project is planned with the purpose of reviewing these seven functions, their transformations, domain, and range.  Students must use at least five of the seven studied to create art.  Their artwork must have at least 12 equations total but as we discussed today, most will have many, many  more.

In the past I would have students create this work on paper.  BUT oh my, DESMOS to the rescue!  How much nicer to have the art online, equations clearly identified, easy to see what students did! Now the focus is on transformations, limiting domain and range ... not on their ability to graph the functions by hand.  The thinking process is different ... better from my perspective!

Here is a link to the handout I gave students.  I can't wait to share their work with you all!  Check back after April 28!

Working on Instructions for Project in Desmos

I'm working on instructions and a rubric for students' project in Desmos.  The purpose of the project is to review the seven parent functions we have studied and to give students an opportunity to demonstrate creativity with those functions.  A key skill will be limiting domain and range.

I don't have the rubric yet ... it needs to be simple.
Here are the instructions for the project.  I would love your feedback!