It can be challenging to plan activities for workshops with secondary math teachers. I like to have teachers first experience learning mathematics as my students do. There’s the rub – if I share an activity from my classroom, teachers already know the math. They can opt out of explorations designed to construct understanding – they know how the story ends.
Marc Garneau (@314Piman) and I have two strategies to deal with this. First, we can have teachers look at a familiar topic in a new light. For example, have teachers:
- use an area model to represent multiplication of fractions
- use pattern blocks to explore quotative division of fractions (and using common denominators)
- use colour tiles to visualize multiple expressions for a linear or quadratic function
- use a visual approach to simplify radicals (my favorite)
Each expert group of teachers was responsible for learning and teaching one set of ‘pop’ rules. For example,
(a + c) ‘pop’ (b + d)
= 2(a + c) + (b + d)
= 2a + 2c + b + d
= 2a + b + 2c + d
= (a ‘pop’ b) + (c ‘pop’ d)
0 ‘pop’ a
= 2(0) + a
= a
Later, we asked “Okay, so ‘pop-ifying’ is not in the WNCP curriculum, but where could you use this teaching strategy?” Teachers answered “It would be great for teaching exponent rules or log laws.”
Mission accomplished.
Chris Hunter 