New Probability Assignment

By Jon OaksFeb 20, 2013
Last week I posted this on twitter after I attended the Math In Action Conference at Grand Valley State University: However, I couldn't post the assignment online right away as I hadn't given it out to my students at that point.  Now I can.  Although I had lots of student questions about the assignment (more than I do a 'normal' assignment), I could tell that this problem had the students think outside of the box more than they would have had I not given them this assignment at all. I tried to manage the student questions by starting a discussion…
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Matching Activity using Hot Potatoes

By Jon OaksAug 13, 2012
This week I was asked about an easy way to make an interactive activity in which students would be able to match equations with graphs or descriptions with graphs.  I knew that there had to be an easy way to do this that didn’t involve having to know anything about java or any other type of code.  My first thought was to use Sharendipity.  However, that didn’t work out because I couldn’t figure out how to build a game from scratch in which I would be able to upload my own images of graphs and equations. After a week-long search,…
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Teaching the Properties of Addition

By Jon OaksAug 10, 2012
Here are some fresh off the press resources that I’ve created for teaching the properties of addition.  One of them is an infographic that I created using Piktochart (I pay for the Pro Version) and the other is a new paper-based game that I’ve affectionately called ASCII for Associative Commutative Identity Inverse.  I plan to use these resources with my Pre-algebra and with my Math for Education classes.   Properties_of_Addition.pdf Download this file  
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Guessing Ages Activity

By Jon OaksMay 20, 2012
This semester I tried a Guessing Ages Activity as a first day activity in my statistics classes.  My version of the activity is adapted from page 11 of Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks.  I found this activity to be a good ice breaker for the first day of class.  The students really enjoyed working in small groups to guess the ages of people and it gave me a chance to briefly review how to find the mean with students, a concept that they should already know from Pre-Algebra class.  Of course, later on in the class we talk about…
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1.653*Pi Day

By Jon OaksMay 19, 2012
Happy 1.653*Pi (5/19) Day!  Yes, I know that Pi Day was way back on 3/14 and that 2*Pi Day is coming up on 6/28.   But celebrating 1.653*Pi Day is a little more fun, don't you think?  Here are few resources that you may be able to use in your classroom: Pi Day Activity My Pi Day Exponent Activity from Pi Day 2011 Pi Day Rap Videos  
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New Games, Activities, and Projects

By Jon OaksJan 09, 2012
In this post, I want to talk about a few of the projects that I have been working on over the break to use with my students in the upcoming Winter 2012 Semester. 1.  Electrifying Truth Table – This is an activity that a friend of mine got from Pete Wildman during the 2011 AMATYC Conference in Austin, TX.  The idea is for students to build multiple different circuits to model truth tables in different situations.  The one in the picture above is the AND Circuit since both switches (sets of paperclips) must be closed for the light to turn…
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First Day Policies and Activities

By Jon OaksJan 04, 2012
Below is a list of rules that I plan to give to my students on the first day of class to try to prevent some of the behaviors that bothered me last semester from occurring again during the upcoming semester.  If the tactics in the handout seem a little extreme, good, I mean them to be.  I want students to realize that certain behaviors have consequences, both for the low achieving students and the high achieving students, both at school and at home.  I know that I will not get through to every student, but if you like my handout,…
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Histogram Match-Up Activity

By Jon OaksAug 30, 2011
When I got this Histogram Match-Up Activity, I liked the concept, but the instructions weren't very clear for the students.  I've cleaned it up some (again, my modifications), and am posting it here.  This activity is different from Histogram Sort as it covers constructing a histogram verses simply sorting the histograms by 'shapes'. Histogram Match-Up
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