Cycle 3 Day 1 - Surveys and Bias

We spent two days on the Cycle Project. I have yet to mark it. Students did not work well in class and so are finishing it on their own time during their MSIP.  However, onwards we go!

Today we started the Reporter Project (premise - the student is a reporter and they have to do some analysis of statistics and also make graphs etc.). We started this unit with talking about surveys and bias.

I had a powerpoint that went through the definitions and from that, students filled out page one and two.

Students then had questions to answer:

Students seemed to understand this well. They easily answered questions in class. I am noticing that students are starting to lose attention. We have over a month left! I need to find a way to keep them motivated. Anyone have any ideas? Activities have so far worked with this group but I only have so many.

Day 20/21 Cycle Project - Research Technician

This project uses the premise that the student is a Research Technician in a start-up pharmaceutical company. They have to help build the lab and they have to do some of the analysis. It uses Trigonometry, optimization, unit conversion, annuities (loans and investments), scatter plots, regressions and solving exponential equations. So a little bit of everything!

The drug I chose (Bacta) is from Star Wars. If you have a better "drug" for the project, let me know! I wanted something that they might recognize. I did not have time to add pictures and make it look pretty. Something for the future!

Day 19 - Cycle Review

Today I went through a PowerPoint review of all that we covered in preparation for tomorrow's cycle project. The questions were done on white boards and I selected students at random to present their answers. It worked well! I hope that they are ready for the project!

Day 18 - Solving Exponential Equations

And we have reached the last day of Cycle 2! Another cycle that is longer than I expected but when I look at the course expectations, I have covered so much!

We started this by working through the questions without context:

It didn't take too long for students to understand what was going on. We only used "guess and check" because the course does not talk about logarithms. There is a strong benefit to this. I find that if students have done questions like this using guess and check, then their ability to understand and manipulate logarithms later is much better. So I urge you out there to NOT teach logarithms too early!

The first page went surprisingly well. We then moved into context and that also went quite well. I started slowly by breaking down given equations and what each part means. This related to the previous day's work and so students got this quite easily. We then built equations with information and that also went well.

Lastly, we solved full problems:

I worked through the first one with them and they need to complete the second.  I guess I will find out soon whether or not they did! And I am caught up! Whew! That took a few days! Hopefully I will be able to better stay on top of the blog for the rest of the semester. Happy last quarter of the school year everyone!

Day 17 - Exponential Models

Today students explored the graphs of exponential functions some more. They worked through the following mostly on their own:

The first 4 pages went very quickly and very well. Students got more practice with the Ti-NSpire calculators. They became more comfortable with graphing and with how the machine actually works.

I should have started this the day before when students were done the Eli"M&M"ination activity. While most students at least got through a chunk of the second booklet, they did not finish and the second booklet I want to mark.Theoretically they should work on it at home or during their MSIP, but for much of it they need calculators and many have co-ops that don't let them work on it outside of class. Again, oops!

Yet, it went well. Students remembered how to use the calculator and were able to work through this with just some guidance here and there as I walked around the room.

Day 16 - Eli "m&m" ination

After fighting with exponent laws, kids needed some candy!

I have used versions of this activity in other classes and it always goes well. It is a little bit expensive but I do it whenever I can find an excuse. Students completed the whole activity, with time to spare (I should have started the next day's work maybe?). It was well done overall and students were engaged from start to finish. (Whoever first cooked up this idea - I thank you many times over! Was it you, Elizabeth Pattison? I know I got it from you the first time!) It was a great way to re-introduce exponential function graphs.

Day 15 - Exponent Laws

Back to paper and pencil math!

I need to get students solving exponential equations by the end of the cycle and so I started with reviewing exponent laws. I won't spend too long here this cycle, but I will come back to it.

I started with a true/false to see what students remembered:

Unsurprisingly, they did not remember all that much! Some were able to work their way through a couple but it was definitely an area of weakness for them.

I gave them about 15 mins to fight with the true/false on their own and then took it up as a class. I have popsicle sticks, each with a student's name on it and was able to randomly select students to answer questions. This went very well. Once they had a chance to fight on their own and realize they didn't know it, and once they understood that their name could be the next one called on, they paid attention and did their best to understand. I did about half the questions with the class and the other half was left for them to do.