Dvorsky Technology

Ideas and innovations for the mathematics classroom.

[dvorskytechnology]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzSa0EMT7SY)

[dvorskytechnology]

Brain... POP in Math

Foremost, appropriate to the name as soon as the website loaded there was a POP. Is it sad to say this had me hooked initially?

Brain-pop appears to be a great resource and I was highly impressed with the layout and content available, even for mathematics.  As I teach primarily Algebra II, the resources it provides for Data Analysis, Polynomials, numbers and operations, are all right down my alley.

The quiz feature, video lessons, “Gaming” options for practice, and extra videos I think would really help students gather insight into the concepts.

I would truly like to explore this site further, I think it would be a great plan for one day to assign a topic and have students guide themselves through the different concepts. This type of learning is very similar to those done in most online courses to date and would certainly be to their benefit.

There are also “lesson-plan ideas” free of charge which I looked at mostly for my derived lesson. Otherwise a problematic feature is that it is rather expensive for teachers and students alike.

A lesson that I would consider would follow a similar template:

Students enter class/review previous homework, attendance, etc.

Students gather laptops and guided notes sheets that correspond to the different topics within Polynomials.

Directions: Students are to complete the various “blocks” of polynomials. 

- Starting with Video

- Continue to FAQ

-Attempt Quiz

After each of these topics is covered, a group discussion and extra practice will be given.

-At the end of class, students will select 1 of the “activities” to complete through the website.

Very basic, but without further access I was unsure as to what the remainder of the topics looked like. Regardless, the free materials would be a fantastic way to introduce the topic rather than myself rambling on. Perhaps it will provide the “hook” for the beginning of the lesson.  The finishing activity also would be useful as assessment as it no longer is the typical “1-23 odds” but rather a small activity for students to choose and complete. This could lead to great class discussion the following day.

[dvorskytechnology]

Socrative Math Lesson

The main thing I plan to use Socrative for is it’s Quick/Question and Exit Ticket techniques.

Again, pardon me for mentioning the flipped class, but any class of mine has benefitted greatly due to me taking Exit Slips. Usually they’re simple questions to help me understand the main concepts, and thus are “easy/quick” to grade. They can become another tedious task though at the end of the day with 60+ to run through.

I hadn’t looked into Socrative much before, having a misinterpretation that it was mainly for language arts and such. But the features can be used across all content areas which was refreshing.

Although the formal lesson would not be presented using Socrative, quickly assessing and finding weakpoints on Exit-Slips would be nicely done by its features. 

Here is a general template as to how I plan to use this within my classes, as the in the Fall I intend to use the flipped approach I’ll give a rundown for it (Algebra II).

Polynomial Addition/Subtraction

-Prior Night: Students will have watched video notes on the basic concepts.

SOCRATIVE QUICK QUESTION:

1) Pose several different questions involving the identification of Degrees, Constants, and polynomial terminology. This will be used via the Multiple Choice Quick Questions.

2) Pose a simple addition question for students to solve (Short Answer)

3) Pose a simple subtraction question for students to solve (Short Answer)

As students complete these they can do so together, use their notes, and I will be “Checking” to see if notes were completed.

Discussion of results/further examples and practice.

Additional examples will be completed in class and follow a cooperative learning group practice session.

MBWA as students work on assigned problems. Pose Key questions to students about subtracting (distribute the negative) and identifying degrees.

To finish the class, the lesson would have an exit slip via Socrative.

The questions would be in the “Exit-Ticket” group within the website and ask students questions based upon those in the classwork.

Assign the following days homework video.

[dvorskytechnology]

Tech and my Flipped Class

Hey guys, as of last year I took the challenge of flipping my classroom. For starters, I was very fortunate to have only have 2 different plans (CP Algebra IIA, Applied Algebra IA) so that is one thing to consider.

It does take a lot of time to put into play, however I found it to be very rewarding. Foremost, was MY OWN access to technology. I would not have been so willing to do this had I not had an easy device to make videos etc. Despite our school being big on Macs, I have a surface pro 4.  It is amazing. I am sure there are similar devices for Mac (Ipad perhaps) but the power of this is great.

The general process I took was to upload my “notes” in form of PDF. The Surface came with PDF editing software that allowed me to write on the PDF and record as a video.  If you check out some more of my videos on DvorskyClass in youtube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr1NMac0g7c_UtG9iX_B5vQ

you can see how the videos are done. Nothing too fancy, but short/sweet and too the point.

My main idea was to take care of the basic stuff and a few examples of problems. The things like vocab and such that take up time at the beginning of class and typically lose students.  They would then come into class and we would discuss their initial findings, go over questions, and practice.

One disclaimer I found.... Just because its technology and videos does not mean students will like class any more. It took a while for my classes to get accustomed to the style, but once they did it was refreshing. I think that we have become so obsessed with trying to make everything in education technology based that we have the notion of “why don’t you like this, its a video!”.  It has to be implemented correctly.

I took a serious look at how I can improve the course, asking for student feedback. One was to “shorten videos” which I did end up doing. As I began I thought of just “replacing my normal lecture 20+ min to video”.  I had thought it would be easy for students... 20 minutes of homework, that’s it essentially. But I found this far from the case. Again, just because its a video doesn’t mean they will sit there and be “engaged”.  I did research and found that 1 min / year of student is more appropriate so I shortened them to under 15 minutes which was largely successful.

Sorry about all this talk, but I hope it helped show my views and give some examples of tech. Please also note... if you watch the videos there are mistakes :-P for one, it was a great tool to KNOW if students watched the videos as they point them out in class, and two it saved time from me obsessing over making the videos.

Alright that's all for now! Enjoy the vids

[dvorskytechnology]

Intro to my Flipped Class

[dvorskytechnology]

Data, Twitter, and MATHEMATICS!!!

[dvorskytechnology]

Ted-Ed lesson.

Hello! Recently in my grad class we began exploring tech resources and began with Ted-Ed. To be honest, I had heard of this source but had not looked into it thinking it would not be “useful” for mathematics. A lot of technology tools out there are great... but they have little practicality in the mathematics world.  Fortunately I took the jump and gave Ted-Ed a try....

One lesson in particular I do in several of my courses involves interpreting Data. The subject can be rather boring, especially when looking at textbooks from the 90′s with irrelevant data.  I have changed my lessons to incorporate more up-to-date facts, but find that students are very intrigued by Snapchat posts, facebook friends, and other social media “numbers” such as Tweets on Twitter.  

To help improve my lesson, I took a look at the video above, Ted Ed, which also included some assessment tools and critical thinking questions for students... basically making the entire lesson planning rather easy :-)

Lesson: 

Objective: The students will be able to analyze data based upon different representations.

-Student will come into class, greeting. Discuss with students that they care allowed to use their phones today! (When prompted). Specifically a social media outlet.  Share with students the objectives and importance of data, (how businesses and individuals can take data from social media).

-Students will individually answer the multiple choice questions. This will allow me to know when they are finished. (Assessment).

-Students will watch TED-ED video.  Discussion afterwards on types of data. Specifically during the video it mentions we are “Data-Making Machines”.  Discuss how that data can be collected and used. 

-Students will then take their devices/social media to create comparisons and scatterplots on data.  

* Depending on the level students will be creating lines of best fit, finding correlation coefficient, and other variables.

Just a basic idea, but definitely am going to consider TED-ED for the future!