Hacking Science Into Math Class! #CCTM16

This past Friday I had the opportunity to present at my state math conference (#CCTM16). I think I was the only presenter that needed a wagon to bring in all my supplies. Not kidding.

I presented on one of the few things I'm good at--getting students out of their seats and getting students talking to each other. Over the past 4-5 years I've been on a journey to involve more more active learning in my math classes. It's a bit more than just 3-act math or problem-based learning. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Math Assessment Project or Emergent Math. There are all sorts of wonderful things happening in the world of online math teachers that wasn't happening 10 years ago. I totally dig it. But that's not really what floats my boat. I'm interested in students modeling the world around them. All the better if they can also be the ones to run the experiment and collect the data. Basically, as close as my class can get to a physics class--the better. It's probably because I married a physics girl.

So, I presented on what I know; doing experiments in math class.

We started out with a quick intro about how this isn't meant as one more thing you can add to your classes. This is meant as a replacement for something you already do in your classes. Math classes in the U.S. already try to do too much. Adding one more thing isn't helpful.

Because it would be super awkward to spend 50 minutes talking about active learning without actually doing something we started out with an experiment: ball drop.

I had the participants arrange themselves in groups of two or three. After a sudden death round of rock-paper-scissors, the loser came up to get supplies for the group.

Here's the slide I put up for directions.

I didn't give much more help than that. Some groups had issues counting the 4th or 5th bounce. For those groups who struggled I made a observation that catching the ball at the top of the bounce and then dropping it would not change the data. I think we were the only session of the day to have participants on the floor or actively using the hallway. Epic!

While groups were busy trying to model the data, I went around the room asking questions and taking pictures of solutions strategies I wanted to discuss as a larger group. When I called the groups back together for a whole group discussion, this happened:

Dear Technology,
I hate that you fail when I need you the most.
Sincerely,
Me#CCTM16

— Andrew Busch (@abusch38) September 23, 2016

My Reflector2 app stopped working. I have this app that allows my phone to mirror to my computer screen. Normally, it works well. It had worked well the 10 minutes prior to this moment. Curses. Time to do what you would do in a classroom--switch strategies.

We did our best to talk about solution strategies without looking at pictures. The room was very gracious about it. A classroom of students would have revolted.

Then we hobbled through talking about how running a classroom experiment naturally flows into covering the CCSS math practice standards and the Principles to Actions math teaching standards. Again, super hard to make seamless connections without the major component of those connections--student work. But, this was a room full of sympathetic math teachers/coaches and they helped me out.

That's when we finally got to talk about some of the wicked cool experiments we can do in math class without needing a physics lab. Well, at least for most of them. I've got the presentation linked below, so I won't go into details here. The gist of what I wanted to say to them was, it's not too hard. You can do it. Ask the science teacher down the hall for help. For real. Ask her. She will LOVE it that you want to do an experiment and will help you gather supplies. Not joking. The physics teacher will probably even set up a lab for you more than once. Again, not joking.

I've already hear back from one person:
"I was inspired enough to try it! I'm going to try to do a lesson with perimeter, area, and volume next week. I stole some boxes, meter sticks, and string from my science teacher next door. You were right, he was excited to help. He already had the boxes made for a lab they used to do. I'm going to try to use different balls for my students who need some more complexity and boxes for the students who need more straight-forward data collection." - Mike

That, my friends, is awesome!

All in all, it was a good experience. I didn't die like I thought I was going to. I might even do it again sometime. Except it would have to be on the exact same topic. I feel a bit like a one-trick pony.

Here's the slide deck for the presentation:

AND, you should be super jealous, I ate lunch with this wonderful #MTBoS crew! From the left: @MathEdnet, @lisabej_manitou,  @pwharris, @0mod3, and me.