One Cut Geometry
The week of inspirational math was created to help students who don't think they have enough confidence in math to work on most problems. It can help them understand that it is possible for anyone to math as long as they put effort into it. It is about learning on the way to an answer, not the actual answer.
Building Squares
-The whole group was handed one round rope and was told to create all of the shapes presented on the board. The group would grab an piece of the rope and try to make the shape often having to fold and scale to get correct lengths.
Number Visual Pennies
-My table group had 100 pennies that we had to assort within many different patterns while stacking all pennies equally. this was an easy activity to solve because my table just placed down the pennies and solve.
One Cut Geometry
-This was the most interesting activity because it was individual and I found myself good at it. basically you fold a triangle scalene triangle until you can cut it out with one strait cut of your scissors.
Square Mania
-Basically we just had a grid of squares and we had to count out the amount of perfect squares we could see. I found this activity fun, and I found it very easy.
Habits of Mathematition
We watched 5 videos, that basically explained that just because you have trouble with math, doesn't mean you are bad at it. The first video was about making smaller scale projects to understand the big picture of a math problem. In the video a the superhero mathematician explains that sometimes to understand a problem you have to make it more simple, or listen to others ideas to get a new or better prospective. This is extremely important to people like me because I can sometimes get in a fixed mindset. It is sometimes good to have someone else tell you a different way because it helps broaden your view. The second video was explaining that just because you work slower than other people doesn't mean you are bad at math, you just think more about it. Nobody is bad at math, all that is really needed is a good math mindset to stay on track. the video tries to underline the importance of understanding problems rather than working quickly. Even great minds take time to digest their thoughts. The third video tries to tell students that there is no such thing as a "Math Brain", or someone who just isn't good at math. As long as you challenge your brain to grow and work to make yourself more acquainted with math you will be more successful. Basically the whole video summarized is that it is really important that you try to make yourself better at the subject, even though you may think you are unable to do the math. You just need to stay strong and believe in yourself. The fourth video shines a light on the importance in believing in yourself. A challenging problem will be impossible if you believe you cant complete it. With some self confidence you can really turn around your attitude towards problems and probably be able to complete them. I recently had a dilemma like this, when taking the MAP test in math. The first day I was extremely confident and felt like I was acing the test. However, I must have been in a bad mood the next day because I wasn't confident with many of the answers that I put down on the test. I feel like my performance on the first day was far greater than it was on the second day. The fifth video focuses on the growth gained through mistakes. "Your brain is like a muscle; the more you work it, the stronger it gets." the thought is illustrated my a girl working on a math problem, but she is confused, and doesn't understand what she needs to do. she doesn't know that the more she makes mistakes the better she is getting, and the closer to solving the problem she is.
One Cut Geometry
With this activity what you needed to do was draw a scalene triangle in the middle of some patty paper. It is super important your triangle doesn't touch any of the edges.you had to fold all of the paper to fit the lines on one side, so it would be easy to make one cut and be finished. However this is harder than you first think, because when you unfold the triangle, it is incomplete. I completed the procedure and created my own method of solving it. when I cut, I was rewarded with the triangle I had first drawn. I enjoyed this problem because it tested me and made me think of other possible ways to complete the task. First I folded the triangle on one of the sides and tried to align every other line over the other line. I found out that no matter how I folded it, there was always a part off. The way I solved it was by partly folding the last fold, not pressing it down. This gave me a much higher success rate, however I occasionally just messed up because of human error.
Reflection
I don't think the week of math inspiration really effected me at all. I am really confident about my math skills, but I do understand how it helps people with their confidence and that is important. It is about people that need help; although it would be nice to have worked on harder math because I'm not sure I learned very much from these activities because they were fairly simple. However it still took time to perfect my different ways of completing each problem. I think the habit of a math mathematician I related to most was persistence. I worked more and more on the same problems until I not only had a solution to it, but understood the whole journey to it.
Building Squares
-The whole group was handed one round rope and was told to create all of the shapes presented on the board. The group would grab an piece of the rope and try to make the shape often having to fold and scale to get correct lengths.
Number Visual Pennies
-My table group had 100 pennies that we had to assort within many different patterns while stacking all pennies equally. this was an easy activity to solve because my table just placed down the pennies and solve.
One Cut Geometry
-This was the most interesting activity because it was individual and I found myself good at it. basically you fold a triangle scalene triangle until you can cut it out with one strait cut of your scissors.
Square Mania
-Basically we just had a grid of squares and we had to count out the amount of perfect squares we could see. I found this activity fun, and I found it very easy.
Habits of Mathematition
We watched 5 videos, that basically explained that just because you have trouble with math, doesn't mean you are bad at it. The first video was about making smaller scale projects to understand the big picture of a math problem. In the video a the superhero mathematician explains that sometimes to understand a problem you have to make it more simple, or listen to others ideas to get a new or better prospective. This is extremely important to people like me because I can sometimes get in a fixed mindset. It is sometimes good to have someone else tell you a different way because it helps broaden your view. The second video was explaining that just because you work slower than other people doesn't mean you are bad at math, you just think more about it. Nobody is bad at math, all that is really needed is a good math mindset to stay on track. the video tries to underline the importance of understanding problems rather than working quickly. Even great minds take time to digest their thoughts. The third video tries to tell students that there is no such thing as a "Math Brain", or someone who just isn't good at math. As long as you challenge your brain to grow and work to make yourself more acquainted with math you will be more successful. Basically the whole video summarized is that it is really important that you try to make yourself better at the subject, even though you may think you are unable to do the math. You just need to stay strong and believe in yourself. The fourth video shines a light on the importance in believing in yourself. A challenging problem will be impossible if you believe you cant complete it. With some self confidence you can really turn around your attitude towards problems and probably be able to complete them. I recently had a dilemma like this, when taking the MAP test in math. The first day I was extremely confident and felt like I was acing the test. However, I must have been in a bad mood the next day because I wasn't confident with many of the answers that I put down on the test. I feel like my performance on the first day was far greater than it was on the second day. The fifth video focuses on the growth gained through mistakes. "Your brain is like a muscle; the more you work it, the stronger it gets." the thought is illustrated my a girl working on a math problem, but she is confused, and doesn't understand what she needs to do. she doesn't know that the more she makes mistakes the better she is getting, and the closer to solving the problem she is.
One Cut Geometry
With this activity what you needed to do was draw a scalene triangle in the middle of some patty paper. It is super important your triangle doesn't touch any of the edges.you had to fold all of the paper to fit the lines on one side, so it would be easy to make one cut and be finished. However this is harder than you first think, because when you unfold the triangle, it is incomplete. I completed the procedure and created my own method of solving it. when I cut, I was rewarded with the triangle I had first drawn. I enjoyed this problem because it tested me and made me think of other possible ways to complete the task. First I folded the triangle on one of the sides and tried to align every other line over the other line. I found out that no matter how I folded it, there was always a part off. The way I solved it was by partly folding the last fold, not pressing it down. This gave me a much higher success rate, however I occasionally just messed up because of human error.
Reflection
I don't think the week of math inspiration really effected me at all. I am really confident about my math skills, but I do understand how it helps people with their confidence and that is important. It is about people that need help; although it would be nice to have worked on harder math because I'm not sure I learned very much from these activities because they were fairly simple. However it still took time to perfect my different ways of completing each problem. I think the habit of a math mathematician I related to most was persistence. I worked more and more on the same problems until I not only had a solution to it, but understood the whole journey to it.