Musings from Mrs. Galvan

My geometry students are going to use Geogebra to construct a quadrilateral (based on its definition) for their next blog post. Problem: I couldn't see the embedded applet when using Chrome when I first started. Then magically, it worked. Here is a link to the prompt. Here is my sample: I made a parallelogram by drawing a line, and then the line parallel to it. I repeated the process and then connected where the lines intersected. The resulting polygon is a parallelogram. If a quadrilateral has both pairs of opposite sides parallel, then it is a parallelogram. As you can see above, no matter how you drag around the diagram, the following remains true: AB and CD bisect each other BC = AD BD = AC BC \\ AD BD \\ AC m<CBA = m<CAD m<BDA = m<ACB

I am loving Phoebe's most recent blog post on using the perpendicular bisector properties. You can check it out here. 

So every year in Algebra when we discuss positive and negative correlation, I tell the same story: When I was in high school, my stats project was an attempt to find a correlation between the length of a girl's hair and the number of boyfriends she has had... Yes, I was THAT girl. Wouldn't you know, there was NO correlation. Then we have an entertaining conversation in which all the students share their own examples. Here are the results from today: x y positive or negative Correlation # of hrs cutting trees # of trees cut p # of bananas eaten amt of potassium consumed p #of peices of candy eaten peices of candy remaining n volume of air in a baloon baloon's diameter p # of As tests # of As on Report Card p # of hours spent studying scores on exams p # of french fries eaten mg of fat consumed p # of energy bars eaten distance ran in x country p # of rainbows we see # of times you smile per day p # of kids in the family # of hours of sleep n amt of yeast...

Over the summer I typed up a list of web tools that I am using or that I want to start using in my class. I posted it here. Yesterday, my student worker got to turn my list of links into this fun Symbaloo of links. I like that I can keep adding to it. I am going to add this to my class website (we use Canvas) so my students always have an interactive list of different ways to show they know. #digitalportfolios

I read one tweet, I get a great list of edtech tools and learn about Symbaloo .

Last Fall, we had an interesting speaker, Dr. Dan Siegel , come to speak at a joint faculty meeting. He spoke about mindfulness and how to embrace its tenets to enhance how the teenage brain works. One point he made that spoke to me, was the importance of spending time reflecting and relaxing. After his talk, I started leading my students in mindful meditations (breathing) before assessments. This fall, our speaker Carol Dweck , spoke to our faculty about fixed vs growth mindsets. While her research isn't directly tied into mindfulness, her focus on the importance of the process and not just the outcome, follows the spirit of mindfulness: balance is key to well being. My (naive) hope is that my students will focus on learning and growth, and not merely on outcomes and grades. I hope that they will leave middle school as good people, and not just good equation solvers. Perhaps an effort driven, balanced-well-being environment is a lofty (hippy-ish) goal, but one I (the hippy alge...

Read this. I do want more real life based, ongoing, STEM related projects through which to teach geometry and algebra. The problem is... I don't have them created. I do have lots of mini projects, that are interesting, on par with students' knowledge base, valuable, strongly related to the content, and most importantly, already in my toolbox ! My plate is already full this year with the whole digital portfolio goal, so perhaps I can find just one unit this year to amend slightly so that it fits this model.... Thinking. Image from Paul Curtis.

Today in Algebra we discussed scatter plots and best fit lines. It is really handy to use the Desmos online graphing calculator to quickly graph the points as students say their heights and shoe sizes aloud. I had to measure a few kids before we started, which was fun too. I would like to find more examples of variables that I can ask my students though. The shorter kids tend to say their heights a bit quietly and I am worried that I might be embarrassing them. I give them another data set in their notes (Life Expectancy vs Time in the 20th century), but I feel like a data set to which they contribute is more valuable and memorable. My 9th period's Height vs Shoe Size Data